


November 2006: 36-Hours

by Jane0Doh



Series: The Hand of God [3]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminal Minds Setting, Alternate Universe - No supernatural, Anal Sex, Canon Compliant - Criminal Minds, Doctor Sam Winchester, Falling In Love, First Times, Hand Jobs, M/M, Marathon Sex, Mental Health Issues, Not Canon Compliant - Supernatural, OCD, Oral Sex, Plural, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming, Romantic Fluff, Sam has a tragic past, Sappy, Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-14 15:10:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14138655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jane0Doh/pseuds/Jane0Doh
Summary: The one where Spencer gets a day off work, and together with Sam decides to spend it not leaving his apartment.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here there be smut! Three whole chapters of it, as Spencer and Sam really get to know each other and deal with some of their own personal issues. I hope you enjoy it!

_Friday, November 3 rd @ 11:50pm_

If someone had told him that morning that he’d end his date half undressed, with an armful of Spencer Reid in the young doctor’s foyer, Sam would have laughed in their face. Well, he might have wistfully considered it a possibility at first, but eventually he would have dismissed it as nonsense. It was their first date and things between him and Spencer were tentative at best, exceedingly awkward at worst. There would be no way in hell Spencer would ever invite him into his apartment at ten to midnight, even if their date _hadn’t_ been a rollercoaster ride.

But, as with so many of his assumptions about Spencer, Sam was completely, one-hundred-percent wrong.

And he’d never been happier to be so than he was right at that moment.

Because at that moment, he had Spencer up against his closet door, pinning him by the hips with his own as he busied his hands unbuttoning Spencer’s shirt. Their jackets were pooled on the floor by their feet, as was Spencer’s tacky, argyle cardigan and Sam’s over shirt, and Spencer was avidly tugging at Sam’s tee, trying his hardest to pull it over his head with no help from Sam.

He was too busy sucking on Spencer’s lower lip and fighting with the last few buttons of his shirt to assist in undressing himself.

When he’d kissed Spencer in the doorway and backed him into his apartment, Sam didn’t plan on things getting so heated, so fast. Sure, there was still a fire burning in his belly from their frantic kisses in the Impala, but he’d tamped it down, his nerves and the thought that he might have offended Spencer in some way making short work of it. And yeah, maybe Spencer’s heated proclamation that he wanted Sam to take him to bed had sparked it again, but he assumed there would be some kind of build up, some words to be exchanged, just _something_.

Apparently though, Spencer was just as keyed up as he was, because the instant the door closed behind them, any shyness or apprehension he might have felt was thrown out the window as he pulled Sam in by the waist and palmed him through his jeans.

Sam moaned around Spencer’s tongue at the memory of his touch, and bucked his hips forward into Spencer’s, eliciting a delicious gasp from the other man as he threw his head back against the door. “Off,” he said, tugging at Sam’s tee-shirt and Sam begrudgingly obliged, letting go of Spencer just long enough to lift his arms, letting him tug the shirt over his head.

He tossed it to the ground and went back to work, freeing the last of Spencer’s buttons from their confines with a pleased hum. He ducked in close, peppering kisses along Spencer’s sharp jaw as the other man shrugged his shirt off his shoulders, letting it fall to their feet to join the rest of their rapidly accumulating pile of clothes. Sam immediately wrapped his arms around Spencer’s lithe waist, digging in with his fingertips as he pulled them together, swallowing Spencer’s heady moan with a kiss and relishing in the feel of his soft, heated skin.

Spencer’s hands surprisingly strong as he kneaded at Sam’s shoulders, massaging his way down his back to his hips, and Sam’s breath caught in his throat when Spencer looped his fingers under his waistband and tugged, grinding their hips together and panting wantonly against Sam’s lips.

Never in a million years would he have imagined Spencer was capable of such effortless sensuality, but every gasp and moan that pushed past his plump, reddened lips, every twinge of muscle, and every impassioned touch was divine. When Sam leaned back, stopping Spencer with a firm hand against his collarbone as he tried to follow, and finally _looked_ at him, the fire roiling in his gut flared hot, swelling up through his chest and scorching at his cheeks.

He looked radiant. His soft, brown eyes darkened with arousal, his cheeks flushed and his lips swollen and spit-slick, Spencer looked completely transformed, brimming with want and more open than Sam had ever seen him before. He finally looked his age, his expression young and desiring, not nearly so tired and apprehensive as normal, and though Sam had him pinned against the door he wouldn’t be settled, still rocking his hips forwards into Sam’s in a slow, sultry grind.

Sam could not recall another time in his life where he’d been so entranced by another human being, and had he not known better, he’d have sworn Spencer was a witch. A siren, some incubi, or another mythical, made up creature he’d read about countless times in his father’s journals, in his psychotic ramblings. He felt like he was burning up, being licked by flames from the inside out and every time Spencer touched him, sighed against him, so much as looked at him, Sam’s skin pricked with warmth and a frenzied energy that could only be sated _through_ him, _by_ him.

Sam ran his thumb distractedly along the side of Spencer’s throat and he skirted the knuckles of his other hand across Spencer’s narrow hips, across his soft stomach, gliding over his navel and Sam watched as his muscles twitched at his touch, his diaphragm constricting as he gasped at the contact. His chest was tight and mostly hairless, and Sam smoothed out a palm against his sternum, before sliding over rub the pad of his thumb against one of Spencer’s small, pebbled nipples, pinching it lightly.

Spencer’s reaction was electric, and Sam had to slide his hand from Spencer’s throat to the wall, catching himself as Spencer’s keening wail made him weak in the knees. “Sam,” Spencer pleaded, running his fingers along the waistband of his jeans, toying at the button of his fly before popping it open, the zipper sliding down as he eased his hand inside, cupping Sam through his boxers, “Please, I—”

“Bedroom?” Sam asked, his voice raspy and barely recognizable.

Spencer waved his hand in a vague direction, somewhere off to his right, and Sam surged forwards, desperate to get his lips back on Spencer’s. He slid his hands from Spencer’s waist up under his arms, gripping him tightly around the ribs and lifting him against the door. He wasn’t as light as Sam expected him to be but, even though he gasped in surprise, Spencer didn’t fight against him. Instead he pulled his hand from Sam’s jeans and pushed down on his shoulders, helping ease himself up and wrapping those long, coltish legs around Sam’s hips.

With Spencer firmly in his grasp, Sam kissed him again, their tongues twining as he backed away from the wall. Spencer’s arms flew around his shoulders, his fingers digging in and his legs tightening around Sam’s waist as he held on tight. Walking in the general direction Spencer pointed, Sam smoothed his hand down Spencer’s arched spine, squeezed his thigh tight and had to forcibly remind himself to take small, measured steps in order to avoid the many armchairs he’d seen littering Spencer’s small apartment.

When his shins bumped against something soft, he broke away from the kiss and looked down, frowning at the sofa he’d run into. Scanning the apartment, he saw an open door that led to what looked like a bathroom, the door they came in through, and the closet door he’d had Spencer pinned against, but no others. There was an open concept kitchen behind them, and they were in a living room of some kind, however he couldn’t for the life of him find what looked to be a bedroom. Sensing his confusion, Spencer relinquished his hold on Sam’s shoulder to point beside them at a curved, wooden staircase that led up to an open-air loft above half of the apartment.

“That’s your room?” Sam asked, raising a brow, “Up there?”

Spencer nodded, letting out an ungainly yelp as Sam promptly deposited him on the couch.

“Too far,” Sam said in explanation, not giving Spencer time to protest before descending on him, climbing between his spread thighs and nibbling at the soft skin of his neck.

Spencer groaned and tossed his head to the side, his back arching off the couch as Sam teased his fingers down his chest to his waistband, making short work of the buttons of his fly. Shoving his jeans down as far as they would go, aided by Spencer wriggling his hips, Sam palmed at the line of his erection through his briefs, nuzzling Spencer’s throat and letting the other man buck into his palm. “Is this alright?” he asked, pressing a gentle kiss to Spencer’s heated throat.

Spencer moaned, “God, yes.”

Sitting back on his heels, Sam reached behind him, pulling off each of Spencer’s shoes, dropping them to the floor with a toneless thump. He looked up sharply, locking eyes with Spencer as he grasped at the waistband of both his jeans and underwear, silently asking permission which Spencer gave with a hurried nod, lifting his hips so Sam could slide them down his legs. He looked away, only for a moment, to pull each leg over Spencer’s slender feet, smiling at his mismatched, Halloween socks and deciding to leave them on, before trailing his gaze back up Spencer’s body.

Sam’s breath hitched at the sight in front of him. Spencer was all pale skin and long limbs, his legs spread around Sam’s hips and bent at the knees. His hands lay limply beside his head, his fingers relaxed and skirting his soft brown hair that curled around his head like a halo, and his chest rose and fell with every quick, eager breath he took. He was slender, willowy and tall but deceptively strong, leanly muscled and when he moved his legs Sam could feel the hidden strength in his legs flexing under his palms.

But his eyes were hands down the best part. His normally warm, toffee coloured eyes were dark with arousal, and Spencer watched him heatedly as Sam smoothed his hands along Spencer’s thighs. He watched him like an animal tracking his prey, with a quiet poise Sam had never seen from him before, outside of this room in the real world, and it sent a stab of heat right to his groin, eliciting a pitiful, whimpering moan as he gripped Spencer’s thigh a little tighter.

He could have watched him forever, content to sit and memorize every detail of Spencer’s body, but the longer he sat back on his heels, the more anxious Spencer became. Sam could see it in the way his fingers twitched, moving his arms closer to his body unconsciously, defensively. Spencer started to pull his thighs in, physically closing himself off as the weight of Sam’s gaze became too intimate, his self-assurance dwindling and that dignified confidence began to fade from his eyes.

“Oh no,” Sam said, grabbing Spencer’s right leg by the ankle as he started to pull back, pressing a kiss to the heel of his socked foot, to his ankle, before looping it over his shoulder and nipping at his calf, “None of that.” He pushed forward, pressing his thumb into the underside of Spencer’s knee and trailing his hand down the back of his thigh, to his small, pert ass, and squeezing appreciatively. Spencer whimpered softly, biting at his lower lip and that heat, that unabashed desire in his expression was back with a vengeance.

Sam moved up along Spencer’s body, tracing a path with his hands as he slid them over Spencer’s mile long legs, enjoying the feel of coarse blonde hair against his palms, and bent down to kiss the side of Spencer’s knee. He squeezed each thigh as he smoothed across them, nipping at the inside of one milky white thigh and smiling when he was rewarded with a high-pitched gasp that tapered into a moan. He laved at Spencer’s hips, nibbled at the soft skin of his belly, and as Spencer reached down to tangle his finger’s in Sam’s hair, he wrapped his hand around Spencer’s flushed, heavy cock and stroked firmly.

At the first slide of his hand, Spencer’s hands flew down to Sam’s shoulders, grappling and pulling him up his body, and Sam reluctantly obliged, loath to tear his gaze away from the sight of Spencer moving in his fist. “Oh my god,” Spencer breathed against his lips, his hips twitching upwards and the next pull of Sam’s hand was slicker, easier.

Running the fingers of his free hand through Spencer’s soft hair, Sam peppered his cheek with kisses, pumping his cock with steady strokes, squeezing gently and twisting his wrist at the head, watching avidly as Spencer’s face crumpled with pleasure. Spencer whimpered, his mouth slack and his eyes clenched shut, and Sam made a low noise in his throat, hardly able to believe how beautiful Spencer looked in that moment.

Spencer began pumping his hips in time with Sam’s fist, still holding on to Sam’s shoulders for dear life and though they were already cramped, mashed on top of one another on a too-small couch, Sam needed to be closer. Dropping his weight off to Spencer’s side and nibbling along his jaw, he looped his leg over top of Spencer’s thigh, and with a sigh Spencer spread his legs wider, nudging at Sam’s chin with his nose.

Spencer slid his hand up Sam’s neck, tugging beckoningly, opening his eyes and silently pleading for Sam to kiss him, and Sam obliged. His lips were plump, swollen from their fervent kisses and shiny with spit, and Sam took great pleasure in nibbling at his lush lower lip, speeding up the motions of his hand with ease. Fuck, his dick was just so _wet_ , flushed red and throbbing in his fist, and Sam felt his own give a twitch of appreciation as he rubbed his thumb over the leaking head, as Spencer tossed his head back into the cushions, moaning obscenely loud up to the ceiling.

Sam was trying to refrain from rolling his hips forwards, from grinding against Spencer’s hip for fear he might scratch him with his zipper, but it was a herculean effort. He entertained the idea of pulling away and ridding himself of his jeans, but only briefly. He was certain Spencer was close from the way the younger man was clawing at his shoulders, panting out staccato little “ah, ah, ah’s” against his mouth, and Sam couldn’t bear to stop now, not even for a second.

“ _Sam,_ ” Spencer moaned, and Sam pulled back a little, putting just enough distance between them because he needed to see his face, he needed to _see,_ “ _please_ , I'm - oh, I'm-"

“Yeah?” Sam asked huskily, running his thumb over the height of Spencer’s cheekbone, feeling him get impossibly harder in his hand, his hips bucking up, _up,_ “Yeah, that’s it. Come on, Spencer, come on.”

With one last helpless groan, Spencer turned his head to the side, mashing his face into the crook of Sam’s neck as he came all over Sam’s fingers, his hands scrabbling over Sam’s chest as he sobbed through it. Stroking him through the aftershocks, Sam cradled the back of his head, letting Spencer catch his breath and pressing a soft kiss to his forehead, nosing at his sweat-matted bangs.

All too soon Spencer was shoving at his hand, and Sam let him go, not expecting to be flipped onto his back, Spencer settling half on top of him and kissing his way down Sam’s chest. Trying to catch his bearings, Sam heard the sound of a zipper being pulled down, and he lifted up onto his elbows just in time to see Spencer tugging his jeans down mid-thigh, nipping at his abdomen and laving the abused skin with his tongue.

“Jesus, Spencer,” Sam breathed as he watched him close his mouth around the head of his cloth covered erection, before pulling away and tugging his boxers down as well. If he was planning what Sam _thought_ he was planning, this was going to be embarrassingly short, Sam mused. He was so keyed up from watching Spencer come that he knew the instant Spencer touched him he would maybe be able to eke out a minute before coming, just _maybe_.

His hard cock slapped wetly against his stomach as his boxers joined his jeans, and if Spencer was at all intimidated, he hid it well. Licking his lips, his eyes were heavy lidded and dark as he sized Sam up, saying nonchalantly, as though he were commenting on the weather, “You’re really big.”

“Sorry,” Sam blurted without thinking, and immediately clapped a hand over his eyes, flushing in embarrassment.

Spencer laughed, and Sam felt him shimmy closer, wrapping his hand around the base of Sam’s cock. “Just an observation,” Spencer said, “nothing to apologize for.”

And then he hummed thoughtfully, licked up the underside of Sam’s cock, took the head into his mouth and sucked as Sam’s brain short circuited.

He wanted to hold out, make it last, but Spencer’s mouth was like salve on a burn, and Sam was already hovering on the edge as he slowly began bobbing his head. Gasping, Sam tentatively reached forward, brushing the tips of his fingers along Spencer’s temple but not daring to grab on.

Spencer reached up, however and pulled Sam’s hand toward him, placing his palm on the back of his head and moaning around Sam’s cock, sending a jolt of heat ricocheting down Sam’s spine. God, he had to look at him, Sam thought frantically, he had to see him, so he pried open his eyes and glanced down, whining pitifully as he watched Spencer’s plump lips spread wide around his girth, his eyes downcast in concentration.

He knotted his fingers in Spencer’s hair, unconsciously bobbing with the movement of his head, not guiding, just along for the ride, and all too soon he could feel that familiar tightening in his gut, that telltale heat spread across his thighs.

“Spence,” he managed to wheeze, his thighs trembling as Spencer picked up the pace, moving his hand now in tandem with his mouth, “Fuck, Spencer, I’m gonna— _god_!”

Pulling back until his lips were just closed around the head, Spencer sped up with his hand and flattened his tongue against him, sucking hard. His hand around Sam’s hip, he held him steady, working him through his orgasm as he twitched and throbbed against his tongue, swallowing as he came.

“Holy shit,” Sam said, flopping back against the couch with a heavy sigh, letting his hand slip away from Spencer’s hair and his other (still dirty) fall listlessly beside his head. He was panting hard, his chest heaving and he knew he was probably disgustingly sweaty, but he couldn’t find the will to care as Spencer crawled up next to him, tucking himself against his side and resting his chin on Sam’s shoulder.

Stretching, Sam barely managed to reach the box of tissues on the coffee table, catching it with his finger tips and hastily cleaning his hand before wrapping Spencer up in his arms and sighing against his hair. “You’re full of surprises, you know that?” Sam asked, nudging at Spencer’s temple with his nose until he took the hint, tilting his head back and letting Sam kiss him lazily. Spencer hummed in affirmation, and Sam pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose, asking, “what made you change your mind?”

“I was worried if I let you walk away, I’d never get this opportunity again,” Spencer murmured, and Sam rolled on to his side so they could talk face to face, awkwardly kicking his jeans the rest of the way off in the process, “and I really like you. I’m just not good at this.”

“At what?”

“Relationships.” Spencer said simply, “Dating. Sex.” Sam scoffed, “I’m being serious, get your mind out of the gutter.”

“You’re gonna need to give me at least ten minutes, _and_ put some clothes on, if you want that to happen.”

Smiling contentedly and stretching out like a big cat, Spencer cuddled into Sam’s side, softly stroking his back with his fingertips. “I’ve never slept with someone on the first date before,” Spencer said, his face all but hidden in Sam’s neck, “and I’ve never wanted to. But with you,” he looked up suddenly, imploringly, “you feel it too, right?”

Sam didn’t need to ask what he meant. He’d felt it the first time he’d laid eyes on Spencer at the café, and it had drawn Sam towards him every day since. This dynamic, magnetic energy that made his blood run hot, that cracked like jumper cables, like static electricity every time they touched, every time their eyes met. He felt it every time Spencer smiled, or laughed, or said something adorably out of sync with the conversation they were having. Whenever he went off on one of his rambling tangents that made Sam want to take notes, just in case he missed something critically important, or when he would go all starry eyed and say something far too insightful for his age. And it only got stronger as time went on, burning him alive from the inside whenever Spencer was near him, and scratching at the cage of his ribs when he wasn’t.

It wasn’t a silly little crush, and it hadn’t been for a while. And if Sam needed any more confirmation that what he felt for Spencer was bordering on serious, then what they’d just done was enough to prove it.

Sam couldn’t remember another time in his life when he’d felt so consumed with need for another person. He’d loved Jessica, was going to propose to her after graduation, but even then, it was different. Their love had been slow and gentle, not the aching, feverous _need_ that had Spencer and Sam clawing each other from their clothes in the foyer of his apartment. If he and Jessica were like Kansas City blues in a smoky bar, he and Spencer were like a cannonball to a burning building.

And it was the last piece of their puzzle, wasn’t it? The confirmation of a physical synchronicity to pair with their feelings for each other.

Sam just hadn’t been expecting it so soon.

“Yeah,” he said, kissing Spencer’s forehead and squeezing him a little tighter, “I feel it, too.” At Spencer’s happy sigh, Sam relaxed, running his fingers through his hair, marvelling at its softness, and asked, “Did tonight turn out at all like you thought it would?”

Spencer shook his head, “Not even close.”

“Was it worth the wait, at least?”

“Definitely.”

He lost track of how long they laid like that, a tangle of legs and arms, their skin cooling rapidly despite the heat pumping through the apartment. Sam had begun to think Spencer fell asleep when the other man twisted in his arms, pulling his wrist out from where it had been sandwiched between them and bringing his watch up to his face. “It’s almost one,” Spencer said, his brow furrowing.

“What?” Sam turned Spencer’s wrist so he could check the time, “Wow, time flies.”

“It’s been known to.”

“I should probably get out of your hair,” Sam said, though he made no move to get up, and neither did Spencer, “You have work in the morning, right?”

“Not until nine,” Spencer muttered, his voice muffled by Sam’s neck, reaching down to grip Sam’s hip, “you?”

“No, I have tomorrow off.”

Spencer looked up, his gaze tired but hopeful, and said, “You can stay, if you like?”

“Well, that depends,” Sam said, pretending to mull it over, even if he’d already mentally agreed ten times over, “Can you still move? Because I can, I seem to remember promising not to leave your bed until neither one of us _could_ , so…”

Laughing, Spencer burrowed back into the crook of Sam’s neck, “I think I’m going to need a few minutes.”

“You and me both,” Sam replied, running his hands up and down Spencer’s back and frowning at the chill of his skin, “Hey, lets get you into bed before you freeze to death.”

Spencer nodded, and reluctantly pulled himself away, half sitting, half leaning on his hip as he took stock of his apartment, smiling wryly at the trail of clothes littering their path from the door to the couch. “At least you left my socks on,” he said, looking down at his feet and wiggling his toes in in his odd-coloured socks.

“I had to,” Sam said, snapping up one of Spencer’s feet and nipping at his toes, grinning as Spencer snatched his foot back with a yelp, “they’re adorable.”

Rolling his eyes, Spencer climbed to his feet, his legs trembling like a fawn taking his first steps, and Sam sat up straight, clasping Spencer’s hips with both hands to steady him. “Take it easy, Bambi,” he said, and Spencer glared at him over his shoulder.

“No,” Spencer grumbled, poking Sam in the center of his chest, “I’ve never had a nickname before, and we’re not starting with _Bambi_.”

“I think its fitting,” Sam said, running his hands appreciatively over Spencer’s thighs before grabbing his ass in both palms, “long legs, big doe eyes…” he leaned forwards, sucking a bruise onto Spencer’s lower back and groaning lowly when Spencer canted his hips back into his grasp, “and I don’t believe you’ve never had a nickname before.”

Spencer hummed thoughtfully as he turned, climbing onto his lap and straddling Sam’s thigh’s as he said, “Well, Morgan does have a habit of calling me Pretty Boy.”

“Great minds think alike.” Sam pulled Spencer into his lap, digging his fingers into the juncture of his hip and thigh, and trailed a path of lazy kisses along his stomach, murmuring, “Before I knew your name, that was what I called you.” He looked up and caught Spencer’s eye with a playful grin, “Who’s Morgan?”

“Someone from work,” Spencer said, lightly scraping his nails through the Sam’s chest hair as he looked up coyly from underneath his eyelashes, “He reminds me an awful lot of you, actually.”

Sam hissed through his teeth as Spencer toyed with his nipple, his grip tightening reflexively around Spencer’s hips and tugging him down, settling Spencer firmly in his lap as his cock gave a valiant, but ultimately fruitless, twitch. “Oh yeah?” he asked, sliding one hand up to Spencer’s shoulders and tugging him forwards, getting his lips around one of Spencer’s small, tight nipples and laving his tongue across it. Spencer jerked in his arms, his back arching as he cried out, and Sam let him go with a groan, pressing his forehead to the center of his chest.

“Yeah.” Spencer’s response was nothing more than a breathy pant, and he tugged gently on Sam’s hair, guiding his mouth back to his nipple and rewarding him with a high-pitched whine when Sam sealed his lips around it again and sucked, hard. “H-he’s a big guy who thinks he’s tough as nails, and tries to look and act the part,” Spencer stammered, knotting his fingers in Sam’s hair and keeping him close, “but he’s actually just a big teddy bear.”

“Is he absolutely crazy about you, too?”

“God, I hope not,” Spencer said, gasping as Sam gave his other nipple a sharp tweak, “ _Sam_.”

“Fuck,” Sam panted, closing his eyes tight and pressing his cheek to Spencer’s sternum as he tried to collect himself, “Bed, Spencer, where’s your bed?”

Spencer was off his lap in seconds, pulling him to his feet and tugging Sam along behind him by the hand, his socked feet padding off the wooden steps up to his bedroom.

So preoccupied with getting Spencer into bed and lazily grinding into the delicious cradle of his hips, Sam didn’t have the wherewithal to look around. It was only after they were spent, for the second time that night, and he was trying to catch his breath while Spencer was cleaning off in the bathroom, that he managed to take in the space where the young doctor clearly spent all his time.

While Spencer’s apartment was nice, it was almost clinical. The furniture didn’t seem comfortable, it was unnervingly clean and it just didn’t feel lived in. Spencer’s living room looked more like a picture in a catalogue than a room in someone’s home, but his bedroom? That was another story altogether.

Books. There were books _everywhere_. Mountains of them, stacked across the floor and flanking every single side of his bed. In lieu of a bedside table, Spencer had a plane of tempered glass held up by a stack of books at each of its four corners, and his headboard (which was, of course, a repurposed bookshelf) held dog eared copied of pulpy science fiction, fantasy and classic literature.

There were shelves lining the walls, all stocked full of books and other knick-knacks: little souvenirs, framed photographs and childhood toys, all scattered in between heavy tomes and paper back novels. The shelves were all mismatched, no two from the same set, and old, like they’d been donated to him, or he’d found them thrown away on the street. There was a cozy little desk in the corner (but no computer anywhere to be found), with notepads and envelopes, and an entire roll of stamps. Apparently, Spencer was a letter writer, and Sam smiled fondly as he slumped back against his mountain of pillows.

His bed was just a mattress on the floor, but there were more pillows stacked on top of it than any one human could ever need, and at least five blankets (that Sam could see). A floor lamp near the desk, and a table top lamp on his bedside table were the only lights in the room, and Spencer had hung makeshift curtains from the roof over the open-air landing that looked over the living room, presumably to block out the morning sun as it shone through the floor to ceiling windows that covered the far wall.

It was comfortably, a cozy little lived-in nook in an apartment twice its size, and Sam could easily envision Spencer curling up at night, or during his days off, in his nest of pillows and blankets, immersing himself in a sea of poems and prose, linguists and scientists, romance and logic.

“What are you smiling about?” Spencer asked as he walked back up the stairs, turning off his desk lamp as he walked, still beautifully naked save for his mismatched socks, towards his bed.

“You,” Sam said simply, and Spencer paused halfway through crawling into bed, raising a questioning brow, “and your reading habits.”

“If I’d have known I’d be having company, I might have cleaned up a little.” Spencer flushed, his cheeks bright pink even in the low lamp light, and Sam reached out, tugging him gently by the arm until he was curled up by his side again, his leg slung over top of Sam’s thigh.

“Don’t you dare,” Sam said, burying his nose in Spencer’s hair, “it’s perfect just the way it is.”

Sighing happily, Spencer melted against him, his cheek squished against Sam’s shoulder and his breath slow and sleepy. The lamp still glowed dimly, but Spencer was quick to fall asleep despite it, not uttering another word before slipping into unconsciousness, his body a comforting weight against Sam’s side.

Glancing down at his sleeping face, Sam’s heart clenched painfully in his chest, and he fought to keep from squeezing any tighter than he already was, lest he wake Spencer up. He glanced around the room nervously, looking at the staircase, the only entrance way to the loft, before looking back down at Spencer, who was snuffling softly against his chest.

Were Sam at home, he would be asleep by now, taken under by exhaustion and comforted, despite the irrationality of it, by the devil’s traps, warding sigils, silver blades and salt lines he kept in pristine condition, littered about his apartment.

And though he was more content than he had been in a long time, and there was honestly nowhere else he would rather be at that moment than curled up with Spencer in his bed, Sam wasn’t at _home_ , where he knew he was ‘safe,’ where he knew he could sleep without issue.

So, despite how comfortable he was, how satisfied and incredibly infatuated, he settled himself against Spencer’s pillows, bracing himself for a long, sleepless night.

At least the company was nice.


	2. Chapter 2

_Saturday, November 9 th @ 7am_

When Spencer awoke the next morning, it was to the feeling of fingers running soothingly up and down his back, and a strong, warm chest under his cheek. Despite the early morning light filtering in through the cracks in his makeshift curtains (he’d been meaning to tack a sheet up or something to cover the gaps), and the chill in the air that prickled at his exposed arms and back (he was supposed to speak with his landlord about turning the furnace on, too), he was surprisingly content. Maybe it was the endorphins still running him rampant from his out of the norm, decidedly-more-active-than-he-was-accustomed-to night he’d had. Or, maybe it was that the man he’d been pining after for months was lying naked underneath him, giving him an impromptu back rub while he slowly crawled into consciousness. Whatever it was, Spencer was so comfortable that he almost didn’t want to get up for coffee.

Almost.

Sam must have noticed a change in his breathing, because the nails that had been tracing absentmindedly up his spine slowed to a stop, and his chest moved under Spencer’s cheek. “Good morning,” Sam said, his voice rough and grumbling, slipping his hand up Spencer’s back to his neck, toying with the strands of his bird’s nest of hair, “Sleep well?”

“Never better.” It wasn’t hyperbole, either. Though they hadn’t made it to bed until well past midnight, and his blinking alarm clock shone a glaring 7am, Spencer felt incredibly rested. “How about you?” he asked, shifting so he could look up at Sam’s face.

“Good,” Sam replied, but the bags under his eyes told a different story. He must have seen Spencer’s skepticism in his expression, because he amended his statement with a small shrug and a smile, “I’m not a very good sleeper. It’s a hazard of the job. Some doctors get lucky when they start working odd, long hours: they learn to sleep anytime, anywhere.”

“But you’re not one of them.”

“No,” Sam said, cupping Spencer’s cheek in one large palm and running the pad of his thumb over his cheekbone, “I was lucky enough to score the best company last night though. I never would have pegged you for a cuddler. It was a pleasant surprise.”

“Neither would I,” Spencer shrugged, meeting Sam’s tired, hazel eyes, “I’ve never spent the night with someone to find out.”

“Really?” Sam asked, his eyebrows raising in surprise, “You’ve never slept with someone after… sleeping with them?”

Spencer shook his head, his cheeks heating in embarrassment. “I told you last night,” he said softly, dropping his gaze, “I’m not very good at this kind of thing. I’m not the kind of person to bring someone home on the first date, and I’ve definitely never had sex with someone twice in one night.”

“I get that, but—” Sam bit his lip, clearly debating whether he should say what he was planning on saying next. “Last night,” he flushed bright red almost immediately, and Spencer smiled, finding Sam’s oddly-timed bouts of self-consciousness extremely endearing, “that didn’t seem like your first… um…”

“I _have_ had sex before,” Spencer said, huffing incredulously, “it just takes me a while to get there. And I’ve never been comfortable with anyone staying… afterwards.”

“How long?”

“What?”

“How long does it usually take,” Sam asked, drawing his thumb down over the curve of Spencer’s cheek to trace along his lower lip, “before you have sex with someone?”

“Until last night?” Spencer pondered, distracted as Sam toyed with his lower lip, tugging it downward and dipping just over the precipice of his mouth, before pulling back and smoothing his thumb over his rapidly swelling lips, “Anywhere from four to six months.”

Sam just shook his head, chuckling as he ducked down, replacing his thumb with his mouth as he suckled on Spencer’s lip. Spencer hummed deep in his throat and tipped his chin up, reclining into Sam’s palm as he moved to cradle the back of his head. “Wow, Spencer,” he said when they broke apart, their noses bumping, “I’m honoured.”

“As you should be,” Spencer murmured, no longer interested in their conversation, or getting out of bed, or even coffee. All he cared about was getting that sinful mouth back on his, and he canted his chin up, closing the distance between their lips and tugging Sam closer by the shoulders.

Sam didn’t take much convincing. A few moments in and their kisses became anything but chaste as they fought to get closer. Sam’s hands felt huge as he flattened them against Spencer’s lower back, burning twin palm prints into his sleep-warmed skin. Shuffling forwards, Spencer groaned into Sam’s mouth as they pressed against each other, hip to chest, their legs tangling below the covers.

Wondering just what had come over him, Spencer parted his lips, darting his tongue out to tease at Sam’s when he suddenly remembered they were just asleep. And with that came a plethora of information supplied by his ever-eager brain, ranging from the amount of bacterial growth that can proliferate in a person’s mouth over the span of a few hours of sleep, to the resulting foul cocktail of specific chemical compounds that spring from the decomposing microbes just sitting on their tongues. The same compounds that result from the decomposition of animal tissues, off gassing in their mouths, along with hydrogen sulfide, isovaleric acid, methylmercaptan—

“I can’t,” Sam said, pushing away and covering his mouth with his hand, “I can’t, I’m sorry. I didn’t brush my teeth last night, and when you sleep, your glands produce less saliva, which—”

“Leaves more bacteria on your teeth, tongue and gums,” Spencer interjected, not necessarily surprised but incredibly relieved that Sam seemed to share the same phobia as him, “and some species of oral bacteria, under ideal conditions can double their numbers every twenty minutes, resulting in a growth of around 300 billion over five hours sleep—”

“Please stop,” Sam begged, his brow furrowing even as he laughed behind his hand, “and if you had an extra toothbrush on hand…?”

“Come on,” Spencer said, climbing out of bed and grabbing Sam’s hand, leading him towards the stairs, “I’ll show you to the bathroom and put some coffee on.”

Sam followed along obediently, though he shivered at first at the chill in the air. Goosebumps prickled at his bare skin when they left the warm cocoon of blankets, and Spencer had to avert his eyes as they walked naked down to his kitchen. If he thought Sam was gorgeous clothed, and even more so last night when he had Spencer pinned against the mattress, that was nothing compared to how he looked at that moment, bathed in the morning sunlight that streamed through the picture windows.

He was a veritable Adonis, not an ounce of fat on him and muscular in a way his usual wardrobe of loose fitting plaid shirts and scrubs didn’t divulge. No one Spencer had ever been with could hold a candle to him, and as he watched Sam walk into the bathroom, opening the cabinet Spencer had mentioned and pulling out a fresh toothbrush, Spencer couldn’t help but feel like a skinny little runt by comparison.

With a fresh stab of self-consciousness, Spencer turned away, busying himself with filling the coffee machine. “Feel free to use the shower,” he called over his shoulder, not looking behind him as he stretched up on his toes to reach the bag of coffee stashed on the top shelf, “There’s clean towels in the closet.”

As he leaned over the counter towards the sink, a shiver ran up his spine as he suddenly felt like he was being watched. Sam had him in his sights, was watching him as flitted around his kitchen. Spencer didn't turn to look back, but he heard him spit into the sink, rising his mouth and turning off the water as Spencer filled the coffee machine. He slowed his movements, unsure if he should be flattered or embarrassed by Sam's attention, and when he stretched up over the counter again to put the coffee away, he heard Sam groan softly, and the soft pad of bare feet walking across the floor towards him.

Soon, Sam’s strong hands were on Spencer’s hips, his chest pressed up against his back, and Spencer gasped, fingers digging into the countertop when Sam’s hard cock slid along the cleft of his ass. “You aren’t due at work till nine, right?” Sam asked, running his hands across Spencer’s bare stomach, his fingers toying with the light trail of coarse, blonde hair leading down from his navel.

“Yes,” Spencer said, his words catching in his throat when Sam started kissing his neck, nibbling at the soft skin right behind his ear.

Sam bucked his hips forwards, and the insistent press of his erection against Spencer’s backside sent a stab of arousal shooting straight to Spencer’s cock. “I’ll finish this,” Sam said, nodding his head towards the coffee machine, testing Spencer’s concentration as he began grinding his hips against Spencer’s ass, his fingers trailing up his chest to toy with his nipples, “You go brush your teeth, and get in the shower. I’ll join you in a minute.”

Spencer nodded his head, and Sam moved away, the firm presence of his chest that had been pressing Spencer into the counter gone as soon as it had appeared. Whimpering at the loss, Spencer looked over his shoulder and up towards Sam’s face as the other man took the coffee pot from his hands. Sam’s eyes were dark, his gaze smoldering but when he looked at Spencer he smiled, cupping his cheek tenderly and kissing him on the nose, before inclining his head towards the bathroom and swatting Spencer on the butt.

With an embarrassingly shrill yelp, Spencer took the hint and hurried to the bathroom, intensely aware that Sam’s predatory gaze was on him every step of the way. He debated closing the door as he brushed his teeth, assuming that it was one of the least sexy things to do in the presence of another, even if he were clothed and not sporting a raging boner like he was at that moment. But when he looked up from the bathroom sink after wetting his toothbrush, he caught Sam staring at him again. Plugging the coffee maker in with one hand, he watched every move Spencer made as his other hand loosely gripped his sizeable erection, jerking it rhythmically, the flushed head disappearing over and over into his own fist.

His eyes were narrowed, his pupils blown wide with arousal, and even from across the room, Spencer could see the way his chest rose and fell with each shallow breath, the way his mouth fell open, his jaw slack with desire as he watched Spencer lean over the sink. He was so turned on he could barely contain himself, and all from watching Spencer do something so mundane as making coffee or brushing his teeth in the nude.

It made him feel powerful in a way Spencer had never felt before. For the first time in his life, he felt attractive, desired, sexy, all despite his mouthful of toothpaste. Any lingering timidity was gone, thrown out the window along with the self-deprecative bathwater, and with flushed red cheeks, Spencer spat into the sink, rinsing his mouth and wiping it on the back of his hand before locking eyes with Sam.

He turned slowly and deliberately, perching on the lip of the basin and arching his back lewdly, the back of his head resting against the mirror overhanging the sink. With a patience and a desire to tease he didn’t know he had in him, Spencer slowly ran his hands through his hair, pulling it back from his face before letting go, letting it fall and curl in short rivulets that just skirted his cheekbones. He trailed his fingers down the sides of his throat, across his chest to tweak his nipples, and he grinned coyly when Sam slumped sideways against the counter, missing the start button on the coffee maker and grabbing the base of his cock tightly.

Sam didn’t miss the button a second time, but he still didn’t look away, transfixed on Spencer’s hands as he kept up their descent, his fingertips dancing along his hips, dipping in between his thighs and skirting his erection, which was already dripping precome and throbbing between his legs. Spencer put some pressure behind his touch, his breathing speeding up as Sam’s gaze burned into him, as he watched the other man lean back against his kitchen counter, his stomach muscles trembling with each pull of his own cock.

When Spencer finally wrapped a hand around his erection, he couldn’t help the moan that burst past his lips, and Sam echoed him from across the room, cursing as he watched Spencer through the open door. He was so hard, so turned on by how badly Sam wanted him, how intently he watched him, that Spencer didn’t even think before he dipped his other hand between his thighs, skirting past his balls to tease at his perineum, his other hand slowly sliding along his cock.

And that was it, the straw that broke Sam’s resolve. He was no longer content to just watch, and he kicked off the counter, crossing the room in three long-legged strides and crowding against Spencer, wrenching his hand away from his cock and replacing it with his own. Spencer cried out, throwing his head back and knocking it off the mirror, but he was so grateful to have Sam’s hands on him again that he hardly felt it. He just panted harshly, his thighs already trembling when Sam leaned forward, plundering his mouth with his tongue in a filthy kiss.

Spencer held on to Sam’s shoulders as he was suddenly lifted and sat, more securely, on the edge of the sink, his thighs spread obscenely wide around Sam’s hips. He dug in with his nails, scraping them down Sam’s shoulder blades and eliciting a hiss from the other man as Sam kissed the side of his mouth, along his jaw and down to his throat. “Fuck, Spencer,” he groaned, letting go of Spencer’s cock to roll his rapidly tightening balls in one palm, pressing his middle finger just behind them, rubbing firm circles into his perineum, “You’re so beautiful, _god_ , I never would've dreamed you’d be this sexy.”

Whimpering at the praise, Spencer reached between their bodies, wrapping his hand around Sam and smearing precome across the flushed head with his thumb. Sam gasped and bucked forward, his finger slipping further back than he probably intended, rubbing across Spencer’s hole and causing him to gasp loudly, his thighs tightening around Sam’s hips.

“Yeah?” Sam asked, his voice breathy and turned on as he pressed his finger a little more insistently against Spencer’s most intimate area, teasing around the puckered flesh and setting Spencer’s nerves alight, “You like that?”

Spencer nodded frantically, opening his fist enough to take both of their cocks in hand, pressing them together in a loose grip and letting Sam, who was rocking his hips back and forth, rut against him. Sam grasped the back of his neck, still teasing at his hole and grinding into his spread thighs, and pulled him into a kiss, their lips smacking loudly, wetly echoing in the small bathroom. “Get in the shower,” he said when they parted, giving Spencer’s thigh a squeeze as he backed away, gesturing towards the sliding glass door.

He did as he was told, sliding off the counter onto shaking legs he feared wouldn’t be able to hold him, but Sam steadied him by the hips again, following along behind him as he slid the door open and running his hands over Spencer’s back as he turned on the water.

Ducking out of the cold stream, Spencer hesitated outside of the shower, wanting to give it a few minutes to warm up but also unsure of what to do with himself. Sam had him covered, however, and Spencer’s world spun, righting itself only once he was pressed bodily against the shower door, his back to the glass as Sam fell to his knees in front of him, swallowing the head of his cock without ceremony.

“Oh god,” Spencer moaned, his toes curling against the tile floor as Sam circled his tongue around the head of his dick, and Sam held against the door by his hips. He couldn’t move if he wanted to, pinned to the sliding glass by Sam’s unnaturally strong hands, his fingers pressing divots into his soft skin, and the thought had heat radiating through his pelvis, lapping at his inner thighs. He trembled as Sam took more of him into his hot, wet mouth, his tongue a delicious pressure against the underside of his cock, and Spencer reached down, tangling his hands in Sam’s long, brown hair.

The bathroom filled with steam as the shower heated up, and Spencer gasped for breath, the air suddenly heavy and cloying as Sam sucked him, bobbing his head leisurely and swirling his tongue around the head every time he withdrew. When Sam pulled off, jerking Spencer in his fist as he kissed gingerly along his abdomen, Spencer twitched in his hand, practically oozing a steady stream of precome that dripped down his shaft, running over the hills and valleys of Sam’s fingers.

Sam whined deep in his throat, reaching between his legs and gripping himself, pressing his forehead to Spencer’s hip and closing his eyes tightly, trying to get himself under control. “Your dick gets so _fucking wet_ ,” he said, babbling as he squeezing another bead of precome from the head of Spencer’s cock, “its so hot, _you’re_ so _hot_ —”

He stood up suddenly, opening the shower door and stepping inside, pulling Spencer along behind him. Once they were both inside and under the hot stream, Spencer crowded him against the tile wall, standing up on his toes so he could wrap his arms around his neck and kiss him. Sam groaned against his lips, sucking Spencer’s bottom lip between his teeth and rolling it gently, laving at it with his tongue before pressing forwards, twining with Spencer’s. He held on tightly to his back, his hands smoothing up and down Spencer’s flanks, and Spencer bumped his hips forwards, their cocks rutting against each other, swollen and well past ready.

Attempting to sink to his knees, intent on getting Sam’s cock in his mouth one more time, Spencer frowned when Sam caught him under the arms, stopping him. “Already done that once,” Sam murmured, “I have another idea. Bend over, back to me, and brace yourself on the wall.” Spencer raised a questioning brow, and Sam smiled, kissing him softly, “If I do anything you don’t like, or ask for something you’re not comfortable with, just tell me and I’ll stop, alright?”

“Alright,” Spencer echoed, and he did as he was told, bracing himself against the wall and watching Sam curiously over his shoulder.

Sam pressing a kiss to his shoulder wasn’t that odd, and as he massaged his hands down Spencer’s sides, he found himself relaxing, letting his head fall between his arms and slumping forwards against the wall. When Sam lowered himself to his knees, however, and started running his hands up and down Spencer’s thighs, squeezing his cheeks as he passed them by and kissing them as well, Spencer wasn’t expecting it, but it was nice nonetheless. It was when Sam gripped both of his cheeks firmly and spread them, dipping his thumbs into the cleft of his ass that he frowned. He was about to ask what he was doing when he felt stubble scratching against his cheeks, and Spencer only had a moment before he felt Sam’s warm, wet tongue pressing against him, licking him _there_ and his brain short circuited, fizzling as he wailed, his voice reverberating off the walls of the shower.

No one had ever done this for him before, and he’d never really seen the appeal, but the moment Sam’s tongue laved against his sensitive flesh, it was as if every single one of his nerve endings was lit aflame, shooting sparks of pleasure up his spine and straight to his dick. His legs juddered, his toes curled and he pressed his body weight forward into his arms so he could arch his back even more, shoving his hips back towards that delicious, probing pressure.

Sam was holding his hips steady and must have felt his thighs tremble violently, because he pulled away, asking, “Are you okay?” even as Spencer sobbed at the loss of contact.

“ _Yes_ ,” he hissed, thrusting his hips backwards and looking at Sam over his shoulder, catching him in his hungry gaze, “Yes, don’t stop.”

Reaching forwards, Sam looped his arms in front of Spencer’s thighs, bending at the elbow and reaching past his hips to pull at the upper curve of his ass, spreading his thighs and his cheeks and keeping him that way as he ducked his head forwards and laved at Spencer’s hole. He lapped at him with fat, wet licks, circling his tongue around him and breaking away every now and again to lick a long stripe from Spencer’s balls to his lower back, and down again. His stubble burned in the best way, scratching against his sensitive skin and Spencer panted, rocking his hips back rhythmically with each lap of Sam’s tongue.

“Oh my god,” Spencer babbled, pressing his forehead against the tiled wall and gritting out a high-pitched moan as Sam pushed the tip of his tongue _inside_ him, his hands gripping tight and keeping him as still as possible, “Oh, oh god, I-I— _Sam_!”

Sam groaned against him, the reverberations of his voice shuddering pleasure through Spencer as he plunged his tongue inside of him, deeper and deeper each time. Spencer arched back, panting open mouthed against his arms, the showerhead pounding hot water onto his shoulders and drowning out every sound but his own embarrassingly loud moans, and the feeling of Sam’s delicious tongue penetrating him.

When Sam pulled back, Spencer whimpered, bucking his hips backwards in search of that searing pleasure. Sam chuckled, pressing a kiss to his hole before circling it with his forefinger, tracing over the soaking wet, spit-slicked, flushed pink skin and simply asking, “Can I?”

“Yes, yes,” Spencer pleaded, reaching between his thighs wrapping his hand around his cock, so hard it was bordering on painful, “Sam, please, make me come, I need—I need to come.”

Sam nipped at his ass cheek, gritting out a string of expletives and Spencer’s name before moving back to his entrance, pointing his tongue pressing inside at the same time as his finger.

Spencer’s knees shook, but Sam had him, holding him up with one strong arm wrapped around his hips until Spencer could get his bearings again. It had been so long since he’d been penetrated by anything that the intrusion of Sam’s finger burned, but he quickly relaxed, coaxed open by Sam’s tongue. It didn’t take long for his muscles to give, quivering around Sam’s long, thick finger as he pulled back, never ceasing for a second the long, probing licks of his tongue, not even as he shoved his finger back inside of Spencer’s tight heat.

He felt divine, and Spencer jerked his cock in counterpoint with Sam’s finger and tongue, each breath punching out of his chest on the tail of a high pitched, staccato moan. He was close, so close and he felt his thighs begin to burn with the strain of holding him up, even as warmth spread across his belly, as pleasure radiated from deep inside of him, from parts of him not touched in such a long time. Sam was groaning against him, pressing sloppy kisses to his ass cheek as he plunged his finger in and out of Spencer’s hole. He was watching his finger as he penetrated him, his forehead pressed against Spencer’s thigh and he said, barely audible over the drone of the shower, “I’ve got you baby, come on.”

If the term of endearment wasn’t enough to send him hurtling over the edge, Sam’s next thrust was the deepest, curled inwards and ghosting over his prostate, sending electric shocks of heat straight to his dick, and Spencer throbbed once in his fist before his orgasm hit him like a freight train. He cried out, thrusting forwards into his first as he came, spurting against the wall and over his fingers as Sam followed him, zeroing in on his prostate and rubbing gentle circles over it, milking Spencer for all he was worth, his cock drooling cum and his hips twitching of their own volition every time Sam plunged inside.

Sam pulled his finger from Spencer’s body carefully, gently and Spencer slumped against the wall, his chest and cheek plastered to the tiles. He felt Sam move, the secure cradle of his arm around his hips suddenly gone, but he didn’t move away. Instead, Sam pressed up against him, the front of his thighs brushing the backs of Spencer’s, and Spencer looked over his shoulder, his breath catching as he took in Sam’s flushed, plump lips, his hazel eyes glazed over with arousal, and his cock laying heavy over Spencer’s ass as he worked his hand over it, fucking his fist.

“Sam,” Spencer murmured, supporting himself with one arm against the wall and bending over even more, sticking his ass up and out and relishing in the desperate groan that pulled from his partner. He reached back, scraping his nails teasingly down Sam’s chest, over his toned stomach and his rock-hard obliques, coming to a stop right above his cock. He wrapped his hand around Sam’s, helping to grip his cock and squeezing intermittently. Sam’s gaze snapped up to his face and Spencer stared back at him, his eyes heavy-lidded and sated, and Spencer bit his lip, watching with barely contained anticipation as Sam chased his own orgasm.

He didn’t need to wait long. A few hard thrusts into their joined hands and Sam’s expression crumpled, his mouth falling open as he moaned loudly, his cock throbbing wildly in their grasp as he came in thick, hot stripes up Spencer’s back, across his ass, and dribbling out over their fingers. Sam fell forwards, letting go of his cock and knocking Spencer’s hand off as he wrapped his arms around Spencer’s waist, pulling him up into a standing position and kissing his shoulders lazily.

“You’re amazing,” Sam said against his skin, nuzzling into the side of his neck, “Absolutely amazing.” Spencer mumbled unintelligibly, and Sam laughed, rubbing soothing circles over his stomach. He took a few steps backwards, pulling Spencer into the stream and helped rinse off his stomach, his hand, and turned him, letting Spencer fall forwards and burrow into his chest as he washed off his back.

Spencer felt boneless, the heat of the shower and Sam’s strong arms around him lulling him into a trance as he let Sam soap him up. It wasn’t until he thought, clear as a bell, that Sam was washing his cum off Spencer’s back, that he was snapped back to reality. He pulled back, pressing his palms against Sam’s chest to put some distance between them, and looked up at Sam’s face.

God, what had come _over_ him? Spencer had never been so openly wanton before, not with anyone, but in less than a days time he’d gone from his normal, virtually prudish self to letting a man he’d only known a few months eat his ass in the shower. Were he in his right mind, he’d never have let that happen. He wouldn’t have invited Sam to spend the night either, and he would have had the wherewithal to at least bring Sam up to his bed before having sex for the first time. He must not be in his right mind, however, because he couldn’t make it up a flight of stairs before letting Sam give him a hand job, couldn’t manage it before blowing him and then, when they finally made it to his bed, they had sex _again._

And now, Spencer realized that with anyone else, having sex three times would have taken six months to a year to get to, and he never would have been comfortable enough to let them do…what Sam just did.

What was it about Sam that tore down all of his carefully cultivated defenses?

And why was it that the longer he was in Sam’s presence, the less he cared to keep them?

“Is everything alright?” Sam asked, his mop of shaggy brown hair matting to his head like a helmet as he was soaked by the spray.

Spencer smiled, reaching up with both hands and pushing his hair back, slicking it out of his face as he answered, “Never better.”

Closing his eyes and tilting his head back, Spencer leaned in for a kiss that Sam was happy to give him. Their kisses were sated and lazy now, both of them content to just feel one another, holding on gently as they stood in the cooling spray. Spencer hummed softly, melting into Sam’s arms when a shrill ringing cut through the droning beat of the shower.

“What’s that?” Sam asked, and Spencer huffed a frustrated sigh, opening the shower door and stepping outside.

“It’s my phone,” he said, quickly wrapping a towel around his waist and heading out to the kitchen counter, where his phone rang loudly, the caller ID showing Hotch’s number, “It might be a case.”

Sam shut off the water, and Spencer answered the phone, shivering as the frigid air of his inadequately heated apartment chilled his wet skin. “Doctor Reid,” he said into the receiver, waiting for Hotch to forgo the greeting and jump right into telling him the nitty-gritty details of their next case.

“Good morning Reid,” Hotch said, taking Spencer by surprise, “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, sir,” Spencer replied, blushing furiously as he was reminded of what he’d been doing in the hour he’d been awake, “I was just about to leave for the office. Is something wrong? Do we have a case?”

“No, actually,” Hotch said, “On the contrary, I was calling to tell you that you have the day off. You don’t need to come in today.”

“What?” Spencer had never had a day off at the BAU, not one that wasn’t planned well in advance, and even then, they usually got called in during, “Why?”

“The team has worked the last four weekends straight,” Hotch explained, “and someone in HR caught wind of it. They brought it to Chief Strauss’ attention, and since you’ve not been compensated for your overtime, she’s granted the whole team the next two Wednesday’s off.”

“Someone from HR just… found out? And used the information to strongarm Strauss into granting us time off that _she_ took from us to begin with?”

“It appears that way, yes.”

“Are we sure that ‘someone’ doesn’t work in IT, not HR?”

Hotch chuckled, “While I wouldn’t put it past her, Garcia doesn’t seem to have had a hand in this, at the moment. Call it a lucky break.”

“I don’t believe in luck,” Spencer said wryly, looking over his shoulder as Sam stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, dry save for his hair, which was still damp and sticking up every which way.

“Well, try to enjoy your time off, regardless.”

“Will do,” Spencer said, “Thanks, Hotch.”

“See you tomorrow, Reid.”

The line clicked as Hotch hung up, and Spencer did the same, placing the phone back in its cradle. “Where are you headed to this time?” Sam asked, and Spender shook his head with a smile.

“Nowhere. I actually got the day off.”

“Wow,” Sam said, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter, “That’s a nice surprise.”

“Tell me about it,” Spencer said with a disbelieving laugh, “It’s been forever since I’ve had a weekday out of the office. I don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

“I’ve got a suggestion.” Sam stepped a little closer, his cheeks still flushed from the shower, “And please, tell me if you’d rather not, but…” He ducked his head, that adorable, sporadic shyness back in full force, and Spencer waved him on encouragingly, “we could always take our coffee upstairs, and spend the rest of the day in bed?”

Spencer’s eyes widened at the implication, and he grinned, thoroughly enjoying this idea. “Can we order takeout?” he asked, and Sam laughed heartily.

“I insist that we do.”

“Then I think that’s a great idea.” Spencer closed the distance between them, letting Sam wrap him in his arms and chase the chill from his skin with his warm palms, “You’re sure you want to stay?”

Sam smiled softly and leaned down, kissing Spencer’s forehead before replying, “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, this is smutty. And it only gets smuttier! This is so out of my wheelhouse, I don't know how I'm writing this, and I have no idea if its any good, but it serves a purpose. Next chapter will be up soon, and will be a cute, sexy breakdown of how Sam and Spencer kill an entire day together.
> 
> Thanks for reading everyone! I hope you enjoyed it, and as always, comments and Kudos are appreciated, when earned!


	3. Chapter 3

_9am_

“I could get used to this,” Spencer said dreamily as he curled into Sam’s side, both of them leaning against a mountain of pillows and sipping from his mug of coffee. He was still naked, the feeling of his bare skin pressed up against Sam’s promising to become addictive, and he was warm, buried under copious amounts of blankets with only his arms, head and shoulders above the covers. The apartment was ridiculously cold, the chilly November air seeping in through large gaps in the window frames with no hot air coming through the vents to guard against it, but Sam was comfortable, sighing as he pulled Spencer closer with his free arm.

“And what’s that?” he asked, resting his cheek on top of Spencer’s head, his messy mop of hair tickling at his nose.

“This,” Spencer replied simply, gesturing around the room, “No paperwork, no stressful rides on the metro, and no uncomfortable nights spent on the jet. Just a lazy morning in bed with copious amounts of coffee and good company.” He looked up at Sam and smiled, his eyes glimmering in the soft light filtering through the curtains, “You might just be spoiling me, Sam.”

Sam’s heart thumped hard in his chest and he flushed, feeling his cheeks heating as Spencer grinned wider, pressing his tongue against the back of his teeth and laughing breathlessly, an adorable habit he saved for when he was sincerely amused. _Play it cool Sam_ , he tried reminding himself, but he knew it was far too late for that. The chance to pretend he wasn’t completely smitten had long passed, sometime between jumping Spencer while he was making coffee and babbling mindless words of adoration in the shower. And while he bemoaned his lack of decorum, he was happy to know that Spencer didn’t mind. If anything, Spencer was just as infatuated with him as Sam was of him.

“Good,” he said, taking a gulp of his coffee before setting it on the makeshift end table, “that’s what I was going for.” A book laying on the floor next to the table caught Sam’s eye and he snapped it up, holding it up in front of him scrutinizing, “John Donne?”

“It was for a case,” Spencer said, placing his mug in the headboard and snatching the book from Sam, “We were trying to find an unsub who was hiding behind some obscure literary quote. It ended up being Chaucer, but I tore through quite a few poets in the process of finding it.”

“’But we loved with a love that was more than love.’” Sam glanced at Spencer out of the corner of his eye just in time to catch his disapproving head shake, “No? That’s not John Donne?”

“That’s Poe.”

“’She walks in beauty, like—'”

“And that’s Byron.”

“’I carry your heart with me—‘”

“How can you possibly confuse cummings with Donne?”

“’Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds,’” Sam recited, grinning ear to ear as Spencer whirled to look at him, his expression incredulous.

“Seriously? Shakespeare?” Spencer dropped the book into his lap, shuffling up onto his knees and pulling out of Sam’s arms, a look on his face that promised a literary lecture, when he finally spotted Sam’s shit-eating grin. “Oh,” he said, his shoulders slumping as he realized, “you’re just teasing me.”

Nodding, Sam reached forwards, cupping Spencer’s cheeks in his palms and kissing that petulant pout from his lips. “’Busy old fool, unruly sun,’” he said, leaning back against the headboard and tugging Spencer along with him, until the younger man was practically laying across his chest, “’why dost thou thus, through windows, and through curtains call on us?” He paused to press another kiss to Spencer’s lips, the side of his mouth, their noses bumping as Spencer settled more comfortably on top of him, “’Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?’”

“’Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere,’” Spencer murmured, nipping at Sam’s upper lip, his back curving beautifully as he settled his hips between Sam’s spread thighs, resting his chin atop his hands where they lay folded on Sam’s chest, “’This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.’”

“See?” Sam ran his hands down Spencer’s back, smoothing down to the sharp arch of his lower back and up over the swell of his rear, “I know John Donne.”

“You know one of his most famous poems.”

“And the one about the flea,” Sam added, rocking his hips up into Spencer’s and swallowing the gasp it pulled from between his lips with a kiss.

“We should get up,” Spencer said suddenly, his cheeks turning pink with another onslaught of arousal, and the sight never failed to work Sam up, his cock valiantly filling despite only having come a few hours before.

“I thought the plan was to stay here all day?” Sam asked, guiding Spencer’s hips into rocking down to meet his every time he bucked upwards until they were slowly grinding, Spencer half-hard already as they rubbed against each other.

“It was—” Spencer gasped, his nails digging into Sam’s chest at a particularly forceful thrust, “It was, but then you started reciting poetry, and this—we clearly can’t be naked around each other, and for safety’s sake—”

Sam rolled suddenly, depositing Spencer onto his back, his hair flung out in every direction and his eyes wide and wild. “For safety’s sake?” he prodded, climbing between Spencer’s spread thighs and guiding Spencer to wrap his long legs around his waist, before dropping his hips down, rocking against him.

“For safety’s sake, we should get up,” Spencer finished, though he seemed less than inclined to do so, locking his feet behind Sam’s back and tugging Sam down on top of him until they were pressed chest to chest, “or at least put some clothes on.”

Holding himself up with one arm, folded and cradling Spencer’s head, Sam slid his other hand down Spencer’s side to his hip, pressing them as close as he could as he thrust down hard. Trapped between their stomachs, Sam could feel Spencer’s cock pulse against his, precome already leaking from him in a slow, steady stream and slicking the way as Sam continued to roll his hips, keeping up the same, lazy pace. “Clothes or no clothes,” he murmured, giving Spencer a wet smack on the lips, his breathing already heavy, “I’m not sure I could keep my hands off you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Spencer gritted out as he clenched his teeth around a moan, tossing his head back and baring his milky white throat to Sam’s insistent lips and tongue, “I want you. Sam, I want you so badly, over and over. I want you any way I can have you, and I don’t know how to stop.”

“Then don’t.” Sam sucked at Spencer’s throat, nibbling at the faint little wreathes of red he left in his wake, the sight of marks on that pale expanse of otherwise unmarred flesh sending a spark of arousal straight to his cock, “Don’t ever stop.” With another roll of his hips, Sam pulled back, cupping Spencer’s chin and turning it so he could look at him as he asked, “How do you want me?”

Spencer’s chest hitched, his eyes darkened and when Sam ran his thumb over his lower lip, he sucked it between his lips, lapping at the digit with his tongue. Someone moaned, whether it was one or both of them, Sam couldn’t say for sure but when Spencer let him go, spit trailing from his tongue to his thumb, his eyes big and dark and yearning, he reached down between them and pressed them together, squeezing and stroking as he answered, “Just like this.”

And Sam was only happy to oblige.

_12pm_

Sam shivered as he pulled up his jeans, having been coaxed out of bed with the promise of more coffee and food. Though the layers he picked up and put on as he collected them from the floor helped provide a bulwark against the chill, the air was damn near frosty. It wasn’t a warm day, if the softly falling snow outside the window was any indication, and inside Spencer’s apartment was no better. Sliding his arms through the sleeves of his over-shirt, Sam asked, “Why is your apartment an icebox?”

Looking over his shoulder from where he standing, bent over and digging through his refrigerator, Spencer shrugged dismissively, “My landlord has a rule about not turning the heat on before December first. It’s only the beginning of November.”

“Yeah, but its eighteen degrees outside,” Sam said, walking over to the window and holding out his hand, “And these are really drafty. Has he ever looked at these windows?”

“He has, but he doesn’t want to replace them,” Spencer explained, grabbing a carton of eggs and some random vegetables, most of which appeared to be on their last legs, and depositing them on his kitchen counter, “they’re originals, and he’s afraid new windows would detract from the apartment’s charm.”

“Then he should turn the heat on.” Sam joined Spencer in the kitchen, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched him collect a cutting board and knife, actively avoiding Sam’s gaze. He knew what he was saying wasn’t adding up, and he was side-stepping the issue with surprising finesse. _Well_ , thought Sam, _he did say deflection was his specialty_. “Have you asked him?” Sam pressed, leaning against the counter.

Spencer laughed mirthlessly, looking up quickly to see if Sam was being serious before averting his gaze again, busying himself with deciding which vegetables were salvageable, and which weren’t. “Of course I have,” he said, chucking a few tomatoes into the trash before finding one that looked appetizing, “I’m not promising quality. I can’t remember the last time I went shopping, but this should all be edible at least.”

“And what did he say?”

“He _said_ that he won’t turn the heat on until December.” He sounded fine, but Sam caught the way his brows pinched together, just for a moment, as he started chopping up what made the cut, “Can you turn the oven on?”

Doing as he told and pressing the button on Spencer’s ancient stove, Sam decided to keep pushing his luck, curious as to why Spencer was choosing _this_ subject to avoid. “Why?” he asked.

“Why do I want you to turn the oven on?”

“Why won’t your landlord turn the heat on until December?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer said, his voice as cool as a cucumber, but his knife started hitting off the cutting board a little faster, “There’s still coffee in the pot if you want it. Otherwise, I have beer, tequila and water. Pick your poison.”

Oh, but he was _good_ at this. Spencer could give Dean a run for his money when it came to avoiding issues he didn’t want to talk about, but then again, Sam was a master at getting to the truth. He’d spent a lifetime dealing with his brothers tough-question-dodging, after all. “Spencer,” he said, standing right beside the young doctor and leaning his elbow on the counter, watching the side of his face as Spencer stalwartly stared down at the broccoli he was hacking into bits.

“Sam?” came his icy reply.

“Why doesn’t your landlord like you?”

“I never said that.”

Spencer scraped the broccoli off the cutting board into the dish beside him with a little more force than necessary.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“Sure you do.”

“Do I?”

The blade of the knife rocked off the cutting board at a blazing fast pace, absolutely macerating the onion he was chopping and Sam flinched, itching to take the knife from Spencer’s hands before he hurt himself.

“He won’t fix your windows and he refuses to turn your heat on, even though legally he is obligated to do so once temperatures dip below sixty-eight degrees.” Sam paused, giving Spencer time to digest before adding, “But you knew that.”

That one earned him a sharp intake of breath and an eye twitch, and Sam knew he was on the right track.

“Where are you going with this?” Spencer asked, throwing the onion into the dish in rough handfuls, and Sam used his temporary distraction to slide the knife away from him, putting himself between Spencer and the cutting board, “Hey, I wasn’t done…”

“Why doesn’t he like you Spencer?”

It was the last straw apparently, and Sam watched with utter fascination as Spencer’s expression completely changed. It was like he’d flipped a switch, and the forcibly passive expression Spencer had been wearing morphed into one of frustration, his eyebrows furrowing, eyes narrowing and his jaw falling slack as he scoffed. He stammered soundlessly for a minute, glaring up at Sam before averting his gaze, seemingly unable to look at him and choosing to look at _literally_ everything else instead, from the counters to the walls, the floor to the lighting fixture hanging over their heads. “Why are you doing this?” Spencer demanded, the fingers of his one hand tapping off the counter while the other twitched uselessly at his side, “Why are you pushing this… this non-issue!? So, my apartment’s cold, so what?”

“Your apartment is freezing, and you have a right for it _not_ to be,” Sam said softly, keeping his eyes on Spencer even if the other man couldn’t bring himself to look back, ready to beat a hasty retreat if he saw he was pushing him too far, “Your landlord is refusing to do anything about it, despite that. So, either you did something to royally piss him off, or he’s just an asshole. Either way, if I’m going to get him to turn on your heat, I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

That seemed to take Spencer by surprise. He paused, just as he was about to snap back, and pondered a moment, before looking up at Sam skeptically, his eyes so comically wide that in any other instance, Sam wouldn’t have been able to hold back a laugh. As it was, Sam could contain himself, if only because he didn’t want to make Spencer any more uncomfortable than he might have already, and explained, “You can’t keep freezing in here until December. And am I right in assuming you’ve asked him numerous times, possibly this year alone, to turn on your heat?”

Spencer bit his lip, his eyelids fluttering as he looked away and nodded, hesitantly.

“And he won’t?”

Spencer shook his head.

“Why?”

“I don’t know!”

Sam winced. Spencer’s tone bordered on shrill when he was frustrated apparently, and he took a small step back as Spencer started waving his hands as he talked, gesturing wildly along with his words. “I don’t know why he doesn’t like me, but its probably the same reason that the woman in 308 doesn’t like me, or the mailman, or my drycleaner!” He huffed and shook his head sharply, his tongue pushing at his lower lip as he said, “It’s been this way ever since I was a kid. More often than not, people find me irritating, and they either go out of their way to avoid me or to make my life miserable. Thankfully, as I’ve gotten older it’s usually the former, but apparently, that’s not the case with Neil.”

“Neil?”

Spencer looked up at him, fuming in disbelief as he shrieked, “My landlord!”

“O-kay,” Sam said, holding his hands up in conciliation, ducking down a little so he wasn’t towering over Spencer, hoping that would help to convince him he was on his side, “So, Neil’s just a jerk. I can deal with jerks. Where’s his apartment?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

“Sam,” Spencer sounded exasperated, but the fight in him evaporated before Sam’s eyes as he assured him, “You don’t have to do that.”

“But I will,” Sam tapped at Spencer’s chin, drawing his gaze back to him as he asked, “Unless you really don’t want me to?”

“I just—” he cut himself off, licking his lips, “I don’t see what it will do. He already doesn’t like me, he’s proven that much. What will you talking to him help?”

Sam laughed despite himself, bracing against the glare that Spencer shot him as he said, “Have you seen me?”

And, as if seeing him for the first time, Spencer looked Sam up and down, a look of understanding dawning across his features. “You aren’t going to threaten him, are you?” he asked.

“No,” Sam said, and he meant it. He knew from experience he wouldn’t have to. When a six-foot-five, muscle bound dude shows up at your front door and starts calling you on your shit, you usually do what he asks without the need for threats or violence.

“You don’t need to feel obligated—”

“Spence, it’s not obligation.” Sam reached out and grabbed both of Spencer’s hands in his, frowning at how cold they were, “ _He_ is obligated to heat this apartment. You pay rent, so its your right as a tenant. And I want to help you.” He waited a beat, mulling over his next words in his head, before deciding to just spit it out, “I care about you.”

Spencer hands, which had been lifeless in Sam’s grasp, suddenly moved as Spencer wrapped his fingers around his and squeezed reassuringly.

“Besides,” Sam added, distractedly running his thumbs over the backs of Spencer’s hands, “when I finally do leave, as I assume I’ll need to eventually, if you don’t have heat in this place I’m just gonna worry about you freezing to death until the next time I see you.”

“So, this is a favour for you then?” Spencer asked, a teasing lilt to his voice, and the hint of a smile curling at his lips had Sam’s stomach doing flip flops.

“Definitely,” he said, unable to resist tugging Spencer close, until they were toe to toe, chest to chest.

Tugging his hands out of Sam’s grip, Spencer smoothed his palms down Sam’s front, pressing out the wrinkles in his shirt as he murmured, “And you’re not doing this out of some kind of misplaced sense of pity or chivalry, right?”

“No.” Sam pulled Spencer in even closer by his hips, leaning down to kiss him softly on the mouth and sighing happily when Spencer tilted his head back, his lips moving sumptuously against Sam’s. He was soft and pliant under Sam’s caresses, all of that firecracker energy he’d just exuded gone and replaced with the intoxicatingly brazen sensuality Sam was fast becoming accustomed to. “I’m doing this because I like you,” he said as they parted, sliding his palms underneath the FBI cadet tee-shirt Spencer was wearing, chasing the feel of his warm, soft skin, “and I want to help you.”

Spencer shivered at the press of his chilly fingers against his back, and he stared up at Sam from under his furrowed brow, his eyes heavy-lidded and pondering. “Okay,” Spencer said, finally relenting, “He’s in apartment 410, at the end of the hall.”

And not five minutes later, Sam was standing in front of the double doors to apartment 410, knocking loudly.

The hallway was empty, wooden doors dotting the white spackled walls above an ancient, damask carpet, and every apartment quiet. Unsurprising for a Wednesday at noon, Sam mused as he pounded on Neil’s door again, finally hearing a rustling inside.

It took three more tries (if nothing else, Sam was persistent), before the door swung open under his fist and a heavy-set, middle aged man glared up at him from his spot in the doorway.

“What?” the man grumbled, scratching at his hairline as he stared at Sam, his countenance falling a little as he looked him up and down. Clearly, he wasn’t expecting Sam to be the one knocking at his door, probably one of his tenants, more reasonably Spencer himself, and he was thrown for a bit of a loop because of it.

“Hey, Neil, right?” Sam asked cheerily, holding out his hand, “I’m Sam Campbell, I’m a friend of Spencer Reid?” Neil made no move to take his hand, his eyes narrowing at the mention of Spencer’s name, so Sam cut right to the chase, “I’m gonna need you to turn on his heat.”

Neil scoffed, and shook his head, “Is he deaf, or just stupid? I’ve told him a thousand times: heat goes on December first, no sooner. It ain’t my fault that scrawny runt can’t figure out how to put on a fucking sweater.”

Sam nodded his head, looking over his shoulders to see if anyone was watching, before pushing past Neil into his apartment, ignoring his sputtering protests. “See,” he said, stopping at the edge of the foyer and holding his arms out to his sides, “It feels downright _balmy_ in here, so if the heat doesn’t go on until December first, how are you swinging this? Space heaters? Fire? Magic?”

“None of your damn business,” Neil spat, his hands balling into fists at his sides as he stomped towards Sam, “now, get the fuck out of my—”

“Do you happen to know the heating and cooling subsection of the DC Landlord-Tenants Act?” Sam asked, unfazed.

“I’m not discussing this with some asshole who’s trespassing on _my—”_

“You do know it, then?”

Sam stepped forwards, crowding into Neil’s space and he watched as the shorter man paled, taking a step back when Sam stood at his full height. “You’re legally obligated to heat Doctor Reid’s apartment once the temperature outside drops below sixty-eight degrees, yes?” Neil stuck out his jaw and Sam stepped closer, “Yes?”

“Yes,” Neil grit out, looking down at his feet.

“What’s the temperature outside today, Neil?”

“Eighteen degrees.”

“So, what are you going to do when I leave?”

“You can’t—”

Neil gasped as his back hit the wall, having been unconsciously moving away from Sam who was quickly backing him into the corner, and he looked nervously, side to side, before he glanced up at Sam’s face. “What was that?” Sam asked, shoving both of his hands in his pockets and staring him down.

“I’ll…” Neil stammered, puffing up his chest once more before deflating, “I’ll turn it on now.”

“Awesome,” Sam said with a smile, backing off completely and patting Neil on the shoulder, ignoring how the older man nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden contact, “Thanks for your help!” His work done, Sam walked over to the door, grabbing the handle and, just as he was about to close it behind him, held up a hand like he’d remembered something, “Oh, and Neil?”

“What?” the older man bit out, glaring hatefully across his apartment towards Sam.

“Any fight you pick with Spencer? Any trouble you cause him?” Sam glared right back, setting his jaw as he said, “Is _my_ fight. _My_ trouble. Got it?”

Neil blanched, and nodded furiously.

“Good.”

Sam closed the door behind him, not sticking around before heading back to Spencer’s apartment.

Stepping inside, Sam smiled as he heard hot air rattling through the vents, not enough yet to heat Spencer’s home, but soon it would be. Hearing Sam close the door, Spencer looked up from the oven, where he was placing a brimming baking dish on the center rack and gave him his most brilliant smile.

“How?” he asked, kicking the oven door shut and padding across the apartment to Sam’s side, holding his hands out at his sides, “Sam, I’ve been fighting with him for weeks, but ten minutes with you and he gives in?” Stopping in front of Sam, he looked up at him warily, “What did you say to him?”

Shrugging, Sam reached out and looped a finger into the waistband of Spencer’s sweats, tugging him closer, “We just had a chat.”

“A civil chat?”

“A civil-ish chat, where I commented on how warm his apartment was and recited passages of the Landlord-Tenant Act at him until he gave up.”

Spencer frowned, “Why doesn’t that work when I do it?”

“Because you have a sweet face,” Sam explained, kissing the tip of Spencer’s nose just so he could watch the adorable way he scrunched up his face, “and a kind disposition. Plus, I’ve got like five inches and a hundred pounds on you.”

“Huh,” Spencer said, before sputtering out a laugh, “well, whatever works.” Smiling sweetly, he rose up onto his toes and looped his arms around Sam’s neck, pulling him down for a kiss as he murmured, “Thank you,” against Sam’s lips.

_3pm_

The late afternoon found Sam sitting cross-legged on Spencer’s bedroom floor, filing through his books and commenting on them, before finding Space for them on his shelves. Spencer had protested to his impromptu desire to clean up at first, but Sam had quickly convinced him, arguing that since Spencer had cooked for him, the least he could do was put some books away. And really, it was just an excuse to sift through Spencer’s library, which was as vast and complicated as the man himself.

It was also Sam’s favorite room in Spencer’s apartment, despite not really being a room at all. It housed all of Spencer’s quirks and personality, and he found he could stay up there for hours, content to just immerse himself in the strange plethora of books and trinkets he found there.

“Here,” Spencer said, suddenly appearing right beside Sam with a plateful of frittata and an open beer, which Sam took graciously, immediately digging in. Shaking his head, Spencer laid down on his bed, stretching out on his stomach and wrapping his arms around the pillow underneath him, “I can’t believe you’re still hungry.”

The apartment was much warmer now, which Sam was thankful for not just because it was more comfortable, but because Spencer had removed his extraneous layers of clothing. Clad in a loose-fitting tee-shirt and sweatpants, Spencer shuffled into a more comfortable position on the bed, his sweats riding low on his hips and Sam took a long swig of his beer, his tongue suddenly parched. “I’m always hungry,” he said, and held up the plate in question, “and this is delicious.”

“It’s just eggs,” Spencer said, blushing as he reached with one arm down to the floor, toying with the rim of his own beer bottle.

“No, ‘just eggs’ are what they slop on my plate in the cafeteria at work.” Sam took another bite of his food, turning and leaning back against a bookshelf so he was facing Spencer, “This is a meal. There are vegetables in this. Actual green things. And its not runny, or made from a powder.”

“Oh god,” Spencer groaned, running a hand over his face and peering at Sam through his fingers with a grimace, “What do you normally eat?”

“When I was in college and med school, I actually ate very well,” Sam said in between bites of his eggs, “I still do, on occasion. But I’m an intern with a ton of student debt, and my rent takes up a third of my paycheck, so lately? I’m living on fruit cups and pudding, whatever I can snag off patient’s trays, and peanut butter sandwiches.”

Lifting up onto his elbows, Spencer seemed honestly offended on Sam’s behalf, saying, “You’re keeping people alive and taking care of them at their most vulnerable moments, and they can’t pay you enough to eat?” He scoffed and shook his head, “That’s criminal.”

“That’s modern medicine,” Sam said with a shrug, grinning lopsidedly and touched by Spencer’s vehemence, “but I appreciate your concern.”

“That can’t be legal,” Spencer continued, “How many hours do you work a week, one-hundred? One-hundred and thirty? And you’re on salary, correct? Do they pay your overtime?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Sam tried to interject, but Spencer was on a mission and just barreled over him, counting out stats on his fingers and doing mental math at a pace Sam couldn’t hope to keep up with.

“As of 2003, it should eighty at the most. Hours should be capped at a maximum of sixteen consecutively for a first-year resident and twenty-four in the second and third years. And overnight call frequency should be no more than one in three, thirty-hour maximum straight shifts, with at least ten hours off between shifts.” Spencer said it all so matter-of-factly, coming up with numbers that Sam couldn’t even place, with rights he wasn’t aware he even had, before telling Sam emphatically, “they’re breaking the law, Sam. That _is_ a big deal.”

He shouldn’t have been smiling. Spencer was absolutely correct, he was being taking advantage of; that was life as a medical intern. But seeing Spencer all worked up on his behalf, pointing out the issues in the muddied legality of his hospital’s scheduling practises, was beyond touching. He was adorable when he was flustered (he was adorable all the time, but more so when flustered) and he was so animated, pulling facts from some deep facet of his mind, probably from a paper he read five years ago, that Sam couldn’t help it.

“This isn’t funny,” Spencer said, as he tried and failed not to return Sam’s smile, “This is labour malpractice, and its serious!”

“You know what else is serious?”

“The negative effects that lack of sleep and your horrendous diet are most likely having on your health?”

“How beautiful you are.”

“Stop that,” Spencer rolled his eyes as he protested, squirming where he sat and snatching up his beer bottle so he’d have something to do with his hands, “though I am amazed that, despite your terrible eating and sleeping habits, you’re still so—”

His face flushed bright red and he snapped his mouth shut so quickly his teeth clicked together.

“Still so what?” Sam teased, setting his empty plate and beer aside for something much more interesting, “What am I, Spencer?”

Sam slid across the floor, coming to a stop at the edge of the bed, and Spencer half-heartedly glared at him over his shoulder before looking back down at his beer bottle, picking furiously at the label.

“Charming?”

“Oh no,” Spencer moaned in dismay, dropping his head into his hand.

“Delightful? Funny? Attractive?”

Spencer’s shoulders stiffened, and Sam laughed jovially, knowing he’d hit the nail on the head.

“Is that it?” he asked, walking his fingers up Spencer’s spine, from the waist of his sweats to the nape of his neck, “Are you’re amazed that I’m not a hundred pounds heavier, considering? Or is it that I still manage to bench two hundred, even though I end each day in a severe calorie deficit? You want to know how I maintain this awesome physique on a six-year-old’s dream diet of sugar and processed garbage?”

Spencer was actively avoiding him now, though Sam could feel his shoulders trembling as he tried not to laugh.

“Can I let you in on a little secret?”

Spencer nodded hesitantly.

Leaning forwards, his lips almost brushing against Spencer’s ear, Sam whispered, “I steal a _lot_ of pudding.”

His reaction immediate, Spencer jumped away from Sam like his breath on Spencer’s ear had physically burned him, plastering himself back against the headboard with his legs pulled up to his chest, howling with laughter. The corners of his eyes crinkled and he couldn’t bear to look at him, covering his mouth with his hand as he absolutely lost it. And when Sam climbed up onto the bed, crawling towards Spencer like an overgrown cat, Spencer shot out a foot straight to the center of his chest, holding him at bay.

“Stay away,” he cried playfully, his other foot joining the first in pushing at Sam’s chest, trying to hold him off even as he pressed forwards, “you’re such a creep!”

Sam nodded in agreement, shoving Spencer’s legs off to the side and crowding him against the headboard, his hands on either side of Spencer’s head.  “Yes, I am,” he said, chuckling when he ducked in for a kiss and Spencer stopped him with an open palm pressed over his lips. Sam pushed his hand out of the way and caught his chin, “But you also think I’m sexy.”

“I have eyes, don’t I?”

This time, as Sam leaned in to kiss him, Spencer met him with abandon. It wasn’t with purpose; they weren’t working up to anything, just enjoying the soft slide of their lips, and when Sam reared back and opened his eyes the first thing he saw was the dreamy look of contentment on Spencer’s face. He felt that confusing, bordering on painful tug in his gut again, and Sam dipped down to kiss him once more, quick and chaste before joining him in sitting against the headboard, sliding down to rest his head on Spencer’s shoulder.

“So, have you read all of these books?” Sam asked, scanning the thousands of paperback novels and heavy, hardcover tomes lining every inch of his room.

“Some multiple times,” Spencer said, sipping gingerly from his beer bottle before pointing over their shoulder at the books in his headboard, which Sam followed with his gaze, “but I keep my favorites in here.”

Don Quixote, The Histories of Herodotus, War and Peace in the original Russian and The Double Helix, just to name a few. “Were you always an avid reader?” he asked.

“Since before I was born,” Spencer replied, shuffling into Sam’s side until Sam took the hint, throwing his arm around his shoulders and pulling him in close, “My mom used to read to me all the time, even as I got older. Other kids had dinosaur toys and Matchbox cars, but me? I had books. She was a professor of Middle-English literature, and she always stressed the importance of reading, even before she knew I was… how I am.”

“She sounds like a wonderful woman,” Sam said softly, holding Spencer a little tighter. He’d heard the past tense, but still felt he should ask, “Where is she now? Are you two still close?”

Spencer stiffened, and Sam was about to change the subject when he said, “She’s never left Vegas. She’s not well, so she has to stay to be near her doctors, but I write to her every day.”

“That explains the stamps,” Sam said, and Spencer chuckled, nodding his head.

There was so much going on just below the surface of their conversation. There were things Spencer wasn’t saying, wasn’t comfortable talking about, but Sam wasn’t one to judge. Lord knows, he had his fair share of skeletons in his closet. “I used to write to my brother,” Sam said before he could stop himself, overwhelmed with the urge to give out a little piece of himself, something small, so that Spencer wouldn’t have to feel like he was the only one parting with his secrets, “He was in an institution from the time he was sixteen, till his release at twenty-one. I’d call him, and visit when Bobby could take me, but the visiting hours were scarce and his phone time was constantly being taken away. Letters were the only way we could communicate for a while.”

“Were you close with your brother?” Spencer asked.

“Dean,” Sam supplied, “and yeah, thick as thieves. Growing up, all we had was each other.”

“I’m sure he treasured every word you ever wrote him.” Spencer looked up at him, biting his lower lip before adding sincerely, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

“I’m sorry about your mom.”

The conversation died between them, but as with all of their silences so far, it was comfortable. If the way Spencer sunk into his side was any indication, he wasn’t anxious or uneasy, and though Sam had to surreptitiously tap his finger on the side of his thigh when talking about Dean, repeating the motion five times over until the got the timing down pat, he wasn’t either. He was tired, that much was certain, and though he tried to keep it from his mind, he couldn’t help but worry how he was going to sleep that night, if he ended up staying over again. But all in all, he was happy, and that was odd in and of itself.

He’d not been happy in a long time.

“Hey,” Sam said, breaking the silence and shaking Spencer’s shoulder gently, “have you written to your mom today?”

Spencer arched a brow, “What do you think?”

That settled it. Sam hopped out of bed and grabbed his plate and beer bottle, heading to the upper landing of the stairs before telling Spencer, “Get writing then. You don’t want her wondering why you skipped a day, do you?”

“What are you going to do?” Spencer asked, climbing to his feet and padding over to his desk.

“I’m gonna order us some dinner.”

“You _just_ ate.”

“And I’m still hungry.” Sam smiled, “Besides, I still owe you take out. Any preferences?”

“Indian?” Spencer offered, glancing over his shoulder as he sat down at his small desk, “There’s flyers on the fridge for a place down the street.”

“Indian it is.”

_4pm_

An hour later, while Sam was reclining on the sofa reading and listening to the scratch of Spencer’s pen as he wrote upstairs, he was startled by a sharp knock at the door. He checked his watch, and called up, “Hey Spencer, I think the foods here,” but got no reply. That wasn’t all that surprising; when he went to bring Spencer another beer half an hour ago, he’d been absolutely absorbed in what he was writing, so much so that he didn’t even reply when Sam asked him for a book recommendation. He just grabbed one off his favorites shelf and stuck it in Sam’s hands.

He thought about calling to him again, but when the delivery person rapped a little more insistently on the door, Sam decided against it. Why bother him if he was in the middle of something, when Sam was just sitting around killing time?

Lumbering over to the door, Sam pulled his wallet out of his jeans, frowning at how incredibly empty it was before sighing and taking out his credit card. The person knocked again, and Sam rolled his eyes. This had to be the most impatient delivery person he’d ever met.

But when he unlocked and opened the door, it wasn’t to the sight of a browbeaten delivery person, or some teenager working their part time job. There wasn’t even any food. No, standing in front of Spencer’s open door with an equally confused look on her face was a petite blond woman, wrapped up in a pea coat and staring at Sam like he was the star in some back-county freak show.

“You’re not the delivery guy,” he said.

“And you’re not Spencer,” she replied, looking at the doors to apartments 401 and 403 on either side of the one Sam was standing in, before frowning back at him, “but this is his apartment.”

“Shit, sorry,” Sam said, suddenly aware of how it must look to a stranger for him to be answering the door without Spencer in sight. He fumbled his credit card back into his wallet, and his wallet back into his pocket before holding his hand out and introducing himself, “I’m Sam.”

“Special Agent Jennifer Jareau,” she said, taking his hand politely enough, but emphasizing the word ‘agent,’ “and you’re just… Sam? No last name, or are you trying to make a Cher thing happen?”

“Sam Campbell,” he amended, shoving his hand in his pocket when she released it and slouching forwards nervously when she cocked her brow, “Doctor Sam Campbell? I’m a friend of Spencer’s.”

“He’s never mentioned you,” Jennifer said, not with any malice but it still stung, “Where is he?”

“Oh, he’s just upstairs, he’s—”

“JJ!”

Sam had barely registered the sound of Spencer’s feet as he thundered down the stairs, and when he called out Jennifer’s name from across the room Sam nearly jumped out of his skin. He was standing beside Sam in record time, his eyes panicked and wild as he asked her, “What are you doing here?”

He wouldn’t even look up at Sam. In fact, as JJ explained she was just in the neighbourhood and decided to stop by to see if he wanted to join her for dinner, Spencer actively avoided any interaction with Sam at all. Standing in the doorway, not speaking or being spoken too, Sam couldn’t help but feel like a third wheel, a gigantic space holder hovering awkwardly over a conversation wherein he was clearly unwanted.

What had she meant when she said Spencer never mentioned him? They seemed close from the way they were talking, and even though she was clearly a work friend, she felt comfortable just stopping by Spencer’s home to ask him out to dinner. And over the months they’d been doing this odd back and forth, Spencer had never once talked about him? Not even mentioned his name?

“Well, I can see your busy,” JJ said, smiling up at Sam now that she was clearly more at ease with his presence, “I’ll leave you to it. Sam,” she held out her hand again and he took it, shaking once more, “it’s nice to meet you. Have a good night, I’ll see you tomorrow Spence!”

With a small wave from Spencer she was already heading down the hall, and Sam let the door slide shut of its own accord, biting the inside of his cheek to distract him from the sting of his hurt feelings. He was overthinking things, he tried to tell himself. He’d spoken of Spencer countless times to Cas and to Kevin, but they were his friends outside of work, too. He lived with them, and in Kevin’s case, they’d been doing so for the past ten years. Maybe Spencer just wasn’t that comfortable talking about his personal life with his friends?

That had to be the case.

But the way Spencer had clammed up once JJ was in front of them… that wasn’t nothing right? He’d not spoken to Sam in her presence, not even to introduce him. Instead, he went out of his way to ignore him. That had hurt the most, and was what sparked an awful feeling of rejection, of being used, that was eating at him from the inside out.

“Sam?” Spencer called after him as he walked into the apartment, settling back onto the couch and picking up the book he’d been reading before JJ knocked at the door. He sounded hesitant, his voice soft prompting Sam to look back at him over his shoulder.

He’d seen that look so many times, but never from Spencer. It was what Bobby loving dubbed the ‘bad-dog stare,’ specially reserved for “when you tried to con a con man, and are all outta options.” Dean used it all the time to try and get out of trouble, and Sam had developed a mastery of it while living with Bobby and Ellen, so presumably, he’d built up an immunity.

Not when Spencer whipped it out, apparently.

“I’m sorry,” he started, hitting Sam those upturned eyes as he walked forward and knelt on the couch, sitting down on his heels, “I just wasn’t expecting her, and I panicked. I didn’t mean—”

“Was I supposed to be a secret?” Sam asked, that ache in his chest throbbing horribly.

“No!” Spencer shuffled forwards, and Sam jerked backwards, surprised when Spencer reached out and grabbed his hands, “No, you’re not. Sam, what just happened had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”

“How do you figure?”

“You need to understand,” Spencer said, looking down at their joined hands, his guilt damn near palpable, “I’m a supremely private person. Even though I love and trust every member of my team, I don’t like to discuss my life outside of work, especially my relationships. It’s never been an issue before though because, and I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this or not,” he looked up at Sam from underneath his lashes, admitting, “I don’t really have much of a personal life. And to top it all off, no one… no one on the team knows that I’m bisexual.”

And just like that, any hurt feelings Sam might have been harbouring were instantly erased, replaced with a sense of understanding and a nasty tinge of embarrassment. Oh, that made so much _sense_ , and he was kicking himself for not thinking of it in the first place, because now Spencer felt awful, and was stammering through some awkward confession, his eyelashes fluttering as he glanced around the room, trying to collect his thoughts.

“Please don’t ever feel like I’m in anyway ashamed of you,” he said and Sam shook his head.

“Spencer—”

“Because I’m not. Really, I spend half of my time amazed that you’d even look in my direction.”

“C’mon, Spence—”

“And it was never my intention to hurt your feelings, or make you feel like you aren’t—”

“Hey,” Sam said, squeezing Spencer’s hand and drawing his attention back to him, “It’s alright.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.” Spencer’s shoulder’s drooped, relief overtaking the tension that had been holding him whipcord tight, though from his expression he was still unconvinced. “I was a confused at first, but I get it now,” Sam assured him, “and I would never ask you to come out to _anyone_ if you weren’t ready, that’s not my place. Just because I’m comfortable with my friends and colleagues knowing about my orientation, doesn’t mean you need to be. I just hope that someday you’ll get there. For your sake though, not mine.”

Spencer smiled at that, nodding along with what Sam was saying and relaxing into the couch. “I did tell someone about you,” Spencer said softly, turning Sam’s hand over in his and running his fingers across the lines of his palm.

“Who?”

“My mom. I’ve written her about you a couple times.”

“All good things, I hope?”

“Not at first, but once I got to know you, they got better.”

“Were you writing about me just now?” Sam said, nudging Spencer teasingly.

Spencer nodded, a flush creeping up his face, “I told her you’ve been spending the day with me. That you’re sweet, and kind, and thoughtful. And that you’ve been a perfect gentleman.” Sam raised his brow, thinking he’d been anything but, and Spencer laughed, swatting at his shoulder, “As far as she’s concerned, you have been.”

“Does it need to be true?” Sam asked, and before Spencer could respond he grabbed his hips, pulling him down the couch until he was lying flat on his back, silencing his little yelp of surprise with a kiss. Sam stretched out, flattening himself on top of Spencer and groaning against his mouth as he ran his hands up Sam’s back, underneath his shirts to scrape his nails all the way down again. “Because I’ve been thinking about some seriously un-gentlemanly things I wanted to do with you,” he murmured, kissing along Spencer’s jaw and feeling his pulse race against his cheek, “but I’d hate for you to need to lie.”

Cradling Sam’s face with both hands, Spencer guided his lips back to his, about to kiss him again when a sharp knock at the door changed his mind. If Sam ever doubted that Spencer was stronger than he looked, the speed and efficiency with which he shoved Sam off of him proved him dead wrong. Sam was still reeling, his back suddenly plastered against the arm of the sofa, as Spencer sprinted across the apartment, and by the time he reached the door Sam only regained the wherewithal to stare at him in surprise from over the backrest of the couch.

“Food now, sex later,” Spencer told him from across the room, opening the door and greeting the delivery man sunnily before Sam could get a word in edgewise.

Sam’s heart gave a concerning lurch as he watched Spencer pay the delivery man, his stomach tightening with that same worrisome affection when he realized for the umpteenth time that he was wholly and completely smitten with Spencer Reid.

_6pm_

Sam wrapped his arms around Spencer’s waist, burying his desperate groans against his neck as he thrust his hips up into Spencer’s fist, coating his nimble fingers as he came. Fuck, but he was a fast learner, reducing Sam to a trembling mess underneath him in record time, his thighs twitching with the aftershocks of his orgasm, trembling underneath Spencer as he straddled him.  

Ignoring the mess in between them, he pulled Spencer in close, running his hands soothingly up and down Spencer’s back when he collapsed forward, resting his forehead on Sam’s shoulder. “Oh, that was such a bad idea,” he moaned, whimpering into Sam’s sweat slick skin, “I’m so full I could puke.”

Sam snorted, leaning his head against the couches backrest, his eyes closed as he tried to catch his breath, “You were the one who thought it would be fun to have sweaty, bloated sex after you ate your weight in chana-masala.”

“It _was_ fun,” Spencer said, pressing a kiss to Sam’s shoulder and sitting down fully in his lap, “up until right this second.” He leaned back suddenly, his eyes narrowing as he poked Sam in the middle of his chest, “And I didn’t eat that much.”

“Sure, you didn’t,” Sam said sarcastically, giggling when Spencer rolled his eyes and buried his face in Sam’s shoulder again, “I swear for a minute there, I thought your jaw was gonna unhinge like a snake.”

“If you ever tell anyone—”

“I won’t, don’t worry.” Sam turned his head, kissing insistently at Spencer’s cheek until he turned to look at him as well, his shining eyes betraying his levity, “I’m a perfect gentleman, remember?”

“Nothing about what you just said to me was gentlemanly,” Spencer said, brushing Sam’s hair out of his face and tucking it behind his ear, “Remind me again, you wanted to do _what_ to my asshole? Because you seemed pretty keen on it.”

“Oh no,” Sam groaned, throwing his head back again and covering his eyes with his hand.

“Oh _yes_ ,” Spencer said, and though Sam couldn’t see it, he could all but hear the shit-eating grin on his face, “You like to run your mouth when you’re about to orgasm. You fuck-babble.”

“I _what_ now?” Sam dropped his hand and raised his brows, staring incredulously at Spencer, “Is that a thing?”

“It is now, because you do it.”

“You can’t just make up a name for something.”

“Sure you can. How do you think language originated in the first place?”

“Okay, enough with you, get off,” Sam shoved playfully at Spencer’s thighs, depositing him on the couch next to him as he stood up slowly, getting his bearings before wandering towards the washroom. It was amazing how at home he felt with how little time he’d spent there. Almost an entire day was all it took for Sam to walk around like he owned the place, stopping by fridge after wiping up the mess they’d made of him in the bathroom and grabbing himself another beer.

It certainly helped that is was warmer now, too.

“Hey Spence,” he called, uncapping his bottle and dropping it in the sink, “you want anything while I’m in here?”

With a curiously muffled voice, Spencer asked for another beer. “You’re joking,” Sam said as he walked back to the couch, staring in awe as he watched Spencer, who’d managed to pull his sweats back on, eating paneer right out of the takeout container, “how can you still be hungry?”

“I worked up an appetite?” Spencer said with a small shrug, pausing with the fork pressed between his lips before offering Sam the container.

Sam held up his hands, his stomach churning at the thought of more food. “Give me an hour,” he said, dropping onto the couch beside Spencer, watching fondly as he somehow managed to eat another forkful, “I can’t believe you were the one giving me shit about _my_ appetite. Where do you even put it?”

“I have a really fast metabolism,” was all Sam got in the way of an explanation, and it would have to do. Despite his thin, waiflike silhouette, Spencer certainly could eat. He eventually set the container back on the coffee table after polishing it off completely, picking up the television remote as he reclined into the sofa and pushing play on a movie they were only half watching. Falling into a casual conversation, Spencer interjected occasionally to explain why Gruber wouldn’t have been able to break through tempered glass, or to point out some other glaring plot hole in one of Dean’s all time favorite movies, leaving Sam positively gleeful.

It was only after the movie was over, and they were on to the next leg of what appeared to be an all night, all Die-Hard movie marathon, that Spencer asked the dreaded question, “Can we talk?” He paused the movie, and added, “Just for a minute.”

In his experience, that never meant anything good. The last time someone he was sleeping with asked if they could talk, it ended with her tearing him into tiny, bite sized pieces, and not in the fun “oh-oh here she comes, she’s a man-eater” kind-of way. But Sam sucked it up, hoping his nod looked more casual than it felt as he waited for Spencer to elaborate.

“I know this probably seems sudden, and I don’t want to rush you or anything, but…” he paused, picking at the hem of his sweatpants, pulling at frayed threads as he avoided looking at Sam, completely unaware of the panic induced palpitations Sam was experiencing, “We’ve had sex more times in one day than I’ve had throughout the course of entire relationships, so I think I need to know—” Spencer licked his lips and looked up finally, his eyebrows knitting together in a worried frown as he asked, “ _is_ this a relationship?”

Sam let out a great, whooshing breath he didn’t even know he was holding, smiling in relief when he realized there wasn’t anything wrong. “Wow, I—I thought you were going in an entirely different direction there for a second,” Sam admitted, pulling one leg up onto the sofa so he could sit fully facing Spencer, “Are you asking me if I’m your boyfriend?”

Spencer blanched, stammering for a moment before giving up on words entirely, and just nodding.

“Yes,” Sam said simply, without a moments hesitation, “If you want me to be, then yes, I am. Are you mine?”

“Yes,” Spencer answered just as quickly, unable to keep from beaming even as Sam leaned forwards and kissed him.

_10pm_

“Where the hell have you been!?”

Sam held the phone away from his ear, wincing as Kevin’s piercing voice screeched through the receiver. He shivered, zipping his jacket up as far as it would go and striding down the steps from Spencer’s building, his boots clacking off the sidewalk as he headed towards the Impala. “I told you,” he said, turning his head to the side as a gust of frigid wind blasted him in the face, “I’m at Spencer’s.”

“And you couldn’t call?” Kevin ranted, and Sam could hear the shuffling of his feet as he paced their apartment, “I haven’t heard from you since Tuesday morning. It’s now Wednesday night! What, has he been holding you captive? Did he confiscate your phone?”

“Chill out,” Sam said, stifling a laugh as he fed the meter, thanking his lucky stars no parking inspector noticed he was an hour overdue, “I’m calling you now, aren’t I? I’m a big boy, I can stay out all night if I want to. You’re not my real dad, anyways.”

“Oh, you think you’re funny, now?”

Sam nodded to himself; he thought he was hilarious.

“You always call, and you’re always home at the same time.” Kevin sighed on the other end of the line, and added, “Besides, I didn’t think you’d be _able_ to spend the night at Spencer’s. How are you managing to sleep?”

“I’m not,” Sam admitted, opening the passenger door of his car and sliding in, placing his parking chit on the dash, “I got maybe an hour last night.”

“Dude.”

“I know.”

“That’s not gonna work, Sam.”

 _“I know_ ,”

“And you’re staying another night?”

“Looks that way.”

“ _Dude_.”

“I _know_.” Sam griped. Kevin was right, he knew it, and he also knew he wouldn’t be able to function the next morning if he didn’t get at least four hours that night. “It’s alright,” Sam said, looking over his shoulder into the back seat, “I’ve got a plan.”

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you didn’t mean for that to sound super ominous. Do I even want to know?”

“Probably not.” Sam climbed out of the car, only to open the door to the back seat, pulling out the backpack he stashed his extra clothes in for when he was on call. Moving on to the trunk, he balanced the phone between his ear and his shoulder and groped around at the matting, until his fingers dipped into a little divot. He pulled up, the mat giving way and the hidden door to his dad’s old weapons cache opening with a creak.

When the FBI had apprehended Dean and their dad along Route 66, at the border of Arizona and New Mexico, they impounded the car as evidence, along with the slew of weaponry his dad kept in the trunk. As a kid, Sam remembered finding the stakes, knives, blowtorches and rifles reassuring. A reminder that no matter what evil thing was out there in the dark, their dad was a superhero, and with his arsenal, he would protect them.

As an adult, the thought of how many people his father mutilated and killed with those weapons made him sick.

Now, after Bobby had (at Dean’s behest) used what little savings he had to buy the Impala out of auction, the only things in the weapons cache were what John had burned into Sam’s mind as essentials: Holy water, an iron switchblade, salt, spray paint, and a gun, loaded with silver bullets.

Taking a deep breath, Sam unzipped his backpack and loaded in the knife, the paint and the salt.

“Sam? Hello, are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Sam said, closing the trunk and looping his bag onto his shoulders.

“You got really quiet, there.”

“Sorry.”

“You gotta talk to me, man.”

“Kevin.” Sam ran a hand over his eyes, biting back a frustrated groan, “Listen, I know you’re worried but I’m telling you, I’m _fine._ More than fine, I’m—” he paused, standing at the foot of the stairs back up into Spencer’s building and looking up, smiling as he realized, “I’m happy.”

There was a moment of silence on the line, before Kevin said, “You sound happy. You sound good. Better than you have in a while.”

“I am,” Sam said, even as the backpack on his shoulder weighed him down like a pair of cement shoes, “He’s an amazing person.”

“He’d better be, if you’re staying over two nights in a row. What the hell are you doing anyways, aren’t you bored by—” Sam raised a brow, staring down at his phone as Kevin quickly corrected himself, “Wait, I don’t want to know!”

Distantly through the receiver, Sam heard Cas shout, “Oh, you sweet summer child!”

“I’ve gotta go,” Sam said, chuckling as he opened the front door, “Spencer’s going to start wondering if I left.”

“Yeah, yeah, hurry back to your snuggle-buddy. And the next time you decide to just not come home, _call_.”

“Will do. And Kevin?”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

_12am_

Listening to the clock tick on the wall below Spencer’s bedroom, Sam lay wide awake. He was dying to fall asleep, and by all intents and purposes, he _should_ have been able to… Spencer was sleeping soundly in his arms, his back to Sam’s chest and snuffling softly. It had been two hours since they made their way upstairs, tired and sated, and it had taken all of ten minutes for Spencer to pass out, completely wiped from their day of doing nothing in particular.

But Sam couldn’t sleep, and he knew why.

It infuriated him.

He couldn’t sleep without his salt lines on the window sills. It was something he thought was a permanent staple in everyone’s home when he was growing up, until Andrew Tureski had laughed him out of a sleepover when he was nine for asking where their salt lines were. His dad had pounded their necessity into his head, and it became one of the many nightly rituals he had to participate in before he was ever allowed to sleep.

There were no devil’s traps by the doors, of wards on the walls. Since he was old enough to read and write, one of Sam’s daily chores had been to scrawl those sigils from memory onto the walls of motel rooms they passed through, and to make sure every night before bed that they’d not been tampered with. And even now, as an adult to whom the reality of angels and demons had been purged from his mind, he still couldn’t sleep without ensuring those sigils were in place, a twisted mockery of saying ones prayers.

“Never go anywhere without your silver,” his dad used to say, zipping Sam’s silver switchblade into his backpack every morning before he left for school, as lovingly as a normal parent would zip up a bagged lunch. He’d carried that knife everywhere with him since he got it as a gift on his eighth birthday, and he still needed it nearby when he slept at night. He needed to be able to slip his hand underneath his pillow and wrap his fingers around it, so that when he inevitably needed to defend himself against an imaginary, otherworldly beast that had slithered past all his other defenses, he wouldn’t be forced to do so empty handed.

Looking over his shoulder, he spotted his backpack sitting innocuously next to the bed. He’d told Spencer it was a change of clothes, an explanation Spencer never asked for. Just something to wear tomorrow, and nothing more.

He could almost see the salt nestled in with the can of paint, and the switchblade buried under his jeans. He knew exactly how many minutes it would take for him to ward Spencer’s apartment (sixteen), and he knew he could do it silently.

But he also knew that to do so would be absolutely insane.

It would be a violation of Spencer’s trust.

It wouldn’t be right.

As Bobby used to say, whenever he’d catch Dean and Sam skulking around with their tails between their legs after getting up to no good, “If you gotta sneak around to get it done, you probably shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

He was just so _tired_.

He couldn’t lay a devils trap without Spencer knowing, but he could salt the doorframe. The windows would be easy to manage, too. There was a large gap between the window pane and the sill (the source of that god-awful draft) where he could stuff a butt load of salt and call it a day. And Spencer had these bookshelves lining every wall; it would be so easy to pick a book at random, sketch the appropriate wards in their back covers, and place them back on the shelf relative to the correct cardinal points—

Sam rubbed his palms into his eyes, pleading silently with himself to _stop_.

But he couldn’t. His fingers itched with the need to move, to carve symbols into drywall like he’d done every night for the past twenty-two years of his life. He needed to get up and deface books Spencer didn’t read that often, because the only thought that was swirling, over and over through his mind was that if he didn’t, Spencer would die.

It was illogical. No stupid line of salt was going to protect him against demons or ghosts, because neither existed! Werewolves weren’t going to maul them in their sleep and rip out their hearts, because they weren’t real either, and even if they were, a stupid little switchblade wouldn’t stop them. He knew all this, _really_ knew it, but it wasn’t enough for him to move on from them.

He’d done so well over the past twenty years curbing the worst of his compulsions, and rationalizing his obsessions. He no longer had to hit his left arm if he accidentally bumped into a wall with his right. He didn’t need to flip a light switch into the upright position when he left a room, regardless of whether that turned the light on or off, because up was Good and down was Bad. And he didn’t need to repeat an action twice, or four times, or six, because it just didn’t feel right the first fifteen times.

Sixteen.

_Damn it._

This was the one compulsion he couldn’t quit. The last bee in his bonnet that he couldn’t quash. His therapist thought it was because it was closer in terms of subject to his PTSD triggers, so without working through his trauma, he wouldn’t be able to quiet his obsession. And that was just a can of worms he wasn’t ready to open just yet, so he buried himself in his work, pretended he was too busy to go to his sessions and acted on this last compulsion as quickly as he possibly could every night.

He was down to sixteen minutes now.

Sam sighed.

He could try to get it down to fourteen, at least.

Carefully extricating himself bed, careful not to wake Spencer as he climbed to his feet and grabbed his bag, Sam quietly padded down the stairs, tapping his right ring finger on the bannister as he went.

Two, he counted off in his head.

And then four.

And then six.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go till the end of this installment! Hope you're all enjoying it so far, the next chapter should be up over the weekend :)


	4. Chapter 4

_Sunday, November 10th @ 1:30am_

Despite how infrequent an occurrence it might be for some, this wasn’t the first time Spencer had awoken to the sound of someone screaming. When he was a child his mother used to have fits during her bad nights, where she would disassociate and wander aimlessly through the house, shouting and arguing with persecutory voices only she could hear. In his adult life, he’d lived through enough of his neighbour’s fights filtering through the thin walls to take a screaming, adult man waking him out of a deep sleep with a grain of salt.

He wasn’t, however, accustomed to being woken up by a screaming man _in his bed_.

“Sam?” he asked, sitting up straight and suddenly wide awake, but Sam was still sleeping. He was in the midst of an awful dream, apparently, his limbs tangled in the sheets and his face buried in his pillow as he shouted at an assailant that wasn’t there. His screams tapered off into a pitiful whimper, and Spencer’s heart clenched painfully when he heard, distinctly, Sam crying, “It’s not his fault, it wasn’t Dean’s fault!”

“Sam.” Spencer said, more forcefully this time, climbing onto his knees and shuffling across the bed, one hand hovering in the air as he debated whether to wake him up. He didn’t know how he would respond, if he would react poorly or violently depending on what he was dreaming of, but as Sam kicked out one of his long legs, curling closer to the edge of the mattress, Spencer made up his mind.

Reaching out, he clapped his hand on Sam’s shoulder and shook him hard, calling his name.

He didn’t know what he expected, he thought calmly as his world spun on its axis, his vision blurring as he was suddenly moving. He knew it was risky to try and wake him, but he didn’t think it would end in Sam straddling his hips as he pinned him to the bed by his throat.

“Sam!” Spencer croaked, reaching up to claw at the strong forearm that was cutting off his airflow, his eyes wide and unfocused as he tried frantically to determine if Sam was aware of what he was doing, or if he was still dreaming.

Thankfully, Sam didn’t give Spencer enough time to start panicking. He was only on top of him for a moment, long enough for Spencer to call his name and really feel the monstrous push of Sam’s arm on his throat, and Spencer could pinpoint, even in the dark, the second Sam’s awareness came rushing back to him.

His face crumpled into a look of shock and self-loathing, and just like that the weight of him was gone.

“Sam,” Spencer called to him, rubbing his throat lightly as he watched Sam climb up from the bed and immediately pull on his jeans, avoiding Spencer’s gaze like his life depended on it, “You don’t—please, stop.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sam said, still refusing to look at him as he dressed hastily, sitting down on the edge of the bed with his back to Spencer as he pulled on his socks, “Spencer, I can’t—fuck, I’m sorry, I—”

“ _Stop_ ,” Spencer pleaded, crawling forwards across the bed until he was sitting right behind Sam, “Sam, please, I’m not mad I’m just—"

“How?” Sam demanded, turning to look over his shoulder, his expression incredulous even as his eyes glistened with angry tears, “Why not? You have every right to be angry, you _should_ be angry! I just had you pinned down and tried to- I could have hurt you! I _did_ hurt you!”

“No, you didn’t.” Reaching out a hand, Spencer laid it tentatively on Sam’s shoulder, only for Sam to shrug it off, “I was startled, yes. But you were having a nightmare and I was worried you were going to hurt yourself, so I made the decision to wake you. I knew you might react poorly, and you did, but it was just a second. You backed off the moment you regained consciousness, and I’m fine. I’m not angry.”

Trying again, Spencer rubbed at Sam’s shoulder soothingly with his palm, and this time Sam didn’t pull away. Instead, he looked down at his hands, his expression clouded with immeasurable guilt and said, “You should be. You don’t know how badly I could have hurt you, with just a few more seconds, I…”

“You can stop telling me how to feel any time now,” Spencer said, bending forwards until he was leaning against Sam’s back, his cheek against his shoulder and his arms wrapped loosely around Sam’s waist, “It was a mistake, and an accident. And let’s not forget I’m a trained FBI agent who knows how to get out of a strangle hold.”

“I thought you skipped basic training?”

“Morgan makes me take Krav Maga with him.”

Sam chuckled at that, “That does help a bit.”

“Good,” Spencer said, kissing the top of Sam’s shoulder through his tee-shirt, “Now, are you going to come back to bed and tell me what all this was about? Or am I going to need to drag you kicking and screaming?”

Sam wrapped a hand around Spencer’s arm and squeezed him tight. “I didn’t want to tell you this soon,” Sam said.

“I don’t think we have a choice at this point.”

It took a long moment for Sam to respond. For a while, he just sat there, staring at the far wall and breathing slowly, the only indication he was conscious being the slow stroke of his thumb against Spencer’s arm. Spencer’s cheek rose and fell with Sam’s shoulder, with every rhythmic breath he took, until finally Sam nodded, pulling away only to shuffle up the bed and lean against the headboard, his expression fraught and his eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

Spencer stayed still, the blankets pooling around his waist as he sat at the foot of his bed, worried that if he moved it would break this spell, and Sam would decide he’d rather leave. But whatever he was dreaming of was still with him, weighing on his mind along with his actions upon waking, and Sam seemed to be staying out of a sense of duty to Spencer than anything else.

Well, whatever worked.

“I know you’ve noticed some of the strange tics I have,” Sam said, finally breaking the silence, his voice unnaturally loud in the small, quiet room, “The tapping thing, needing to look over my shoulder twice when someone comes into the room. The way I need to wipe off utensils between bites.”

Spencer nodded, and stayed silent.

“I don’t remember exactly when it started, but from when I was very young, I started dividing things into two categories: Good and Bad,” Sam said, staring stalwartly down at his hands and picking at his fingernails, “Warm colours were good, cool colours were bad. Up was good, down was bad. Day, night. North, South. Right, left. I would obsess over patterns and multiples of two, and I started planning everything I did, day by day, so that I would perform the most good actions, and interact with as many good things as possible.”

“You have OCD,” Spencer murmured.

Sam nodded. “It got so bad that, when I walked into a room, I needed to touch every good thing with my right hand, twice, in an upwards motion. If it didn’t feel right the first two times, then I’d need to stand there and do it four times, then six, eight, and so on, until it did.” Spencer reached forward, laying a comforting hand on his knee and Sam smiled sadly, placing his own hand over top, “I didn’t get any help for it until I was taken away from my dad when I was ten, but after that, with some seriously extensive therapy, I started to get better. The compulsions I still have are closely tied to my childhood trauma, and when I’m stressed, my obsessive thoughts are more prevalent. But I’m better at confronting them.”

Spencer bit his lip, and squeezing Sam’s thigh reassuringly asked, “Childhood trauma?”

“I don’t want to go into it,” Sam said, and Spencer quickly nodded, about to tell him he didn’t need to talk about anything he didn’t want to, when Sam added, “but my dad was not a nice guy. What I am, and how I am, is directly corelated to how he raised Dean and I.”

At a loss of what to say, for once, Spencer stayed quiet, scooting a little closer to Sam’s side. He looked so defeated, his shoulders drooping low and his eyes downcast, and never before in his life had Spencer ever wanted to hold someone in his arms and tell them to just… stop talking. He didn’t want Sam to hurt like this, even if he was telling this story freely, of his own volition.

But the rational part of him, the one that wasn’t absolutely besotted, told him no.

This needed to come out. While he wasn’t angry, there was no way he could ever again condone a wake-up call like the one he’d gotten that night. Sam wasn’t just hiding a disorder and a difficult childhood, he was hiding something that could result in one or both of them getting seriously hurt, and Spencer couldn’t let that happen. It was a difficult conversation, but if they wanted this to work out between them, it needed to be done.

“That’s what the nightmares are usually about,” Sam said softly, his gaze lifting for a moment to Spencer’s neck, then ashamedly back down at their joined hands on his thigh, “The things my dad did. Dean being incarcerated. CPS taking me out of school and away from my family… that sort of thing.”

“I’m so sorry, Sam,” Spencer murmured, and Sam shook his head, reaching out and tugging on Spencer’s arm, pulling him closer until he was tucked against his side, his cheek against Sam’s chest.

“You don’t need to be sorry. I should have told you straightaway, but I was so afraid of what you’d think of me.”

That was an odd thing to say. Spencer looked up at him curiously, and asked, “Why would I think any differently of you, just because you have a disorder?”

“Have I ever told you about Ruby?” Spencer shook his head, and Sam took another one of those deep breaths, looking off into the distance again. “She was a nurse who worked at Bethesda General. During the first few weeks of my internship, she totally saved my hide; she taught me everything I needed to know about how to get by in a hospital, helped me get the hang of my procedures, and covered for me when I needed it.” Sam’s grip around his shoulder tightened, “She was the first person at work I told about my OCD, and she was cool with it at first. We started dating after that.”

“It was good for a while,” Sam said, worrying his lower lip between his teeth, “but when our relationship started to deteriorate, and we started fighting a lot, she started using it against me. She’d call me crazy, say I was a freak, that I was lucky she even bothered to put up with me half the time. That no one else ever would.”

“That’s horrible,” Spencer said, his tone clipped as he tried to bite back the swelling surge of anger that was roiling in his gut on Sam’s behalf.

Sam nodded, “I don’t know why I stayed with her as long as I did. But if I had to guess, its probably because after a while, I honestly started to believe her. I believed I was messed up and completely unlovable, so I just tried to grin and bear it, because I would rather be with her and be miserable than be alone.”

“I almost lost my internship because of it,” Sam explained, resting his cheek against the top of Spencer’s head, nuzzling into his hair, “The stress exacerbated my obsessive thoughts, and my compulsions came back. It would take me ages to do anything, even something as simple as leaving the house would take me upwards of three hours. I’d lose whole blocks of time. It became like this horrible, self-fulfilling prophecy: the worse I got, the more she’d berate me about it, and then I’d get even sicker.”

“What happened to her?” Spencer asked, playing with a loose thread on the hem of Sam’s shirt, “You obviously still have your job, and you seem much better than what you’re describing, so I assume you broke up with her?”

“No,” Sam shook his head, “She just left.”

“Left? Like, ‘left you’ left?”

“She _left_. She quit her job, moved out of her apartment and left the city, without a word to anyone. According to Crowley she was talking about transferring to a hospital in Des Moines, but she never gave any notice.”

“She just left,” Spencer repeated, his brow furrowing as he recognized a pattern he would rather have ignored. He knew better than most that when a young woman just leaves with no mention of it to anyone, its usually not of her own volition, and the real reason is usually far more sinister, but… he didn’t want to upset Sam by bringing that up. Not now at least, when he was already so flustered and on edge.

He made a mental note to ask Garcia for a favour in the morning.

“It was like a weight was just lifted,” said Sam, visibly relaxing as though the mere mention of Ruby brought him back to that time, “And if it weren’t for Cas and Kevin, I don’t know where I’d be right now. They saved my career and my life. They made me go back to my therapist and covered for me at work when I was struggling. They helped me realize that I wasn’t any less of a person because of the things I suffer from, and that people could still care about me, even if I couldn’t be bothered to care for myself.”

“So, this whole time,” Spencer said, pulling away and sitting up straight so he could look Sam in the eye, “You didn’t tell me about your OCD and PTSD because you thought I’d react the way Ruby did? That I’d use it to hurt you, is that it?”

“I didn’t put that much thought into it, but yeah.” Sam shrugged, hunching forwards and looking so unusually small as he admitted, “I thought you’d write me off, if anything. You’re a genius, a rising star in your field and I thought that maybe you’d think I was too much trouble.”

The moonlight drifted in waves across Sam’s face as the curtains rustled, blown gently by the hot air pumping out of the vents. It made his expression seem even more dour, and Spencer was speechless, his mouth agape as he stared in bewilderment. “Sam,” he said, once he managed to regain control of his voice box, “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and I once listened to a man try to convince me I could cure him of a deformity by asking him a question.”

Sam looked up at him sharply, his brow furrowing as he stared at Spencer with the same look of incomprehension Spencer had given him not moments before.

“Think about what I do for a living, first of all,” Spencer explained, sitting on crossed legs and counting his points off on his fingers as Sam sat in stunned silence, “I’m immersed in mental illness every single day, and because of it I have a greater scope of understanding than most anyone you will ever meet. Second, I’m not a horrible person, and I would never, _ever_ think less of someone or treat them any differently because they suffer from something outside of their control. And lastly—”

Spencer paused to take a breath, his inner saboteur telling him now’s not the time, not to tell him, that it wouldn’t make a difference but he knew, deep down, that Sam was trusting him with some of his deepest, darkest secrets. He could trust Sam with his. “Lastly,” he reached out and grabbed Sam’s hands, unexpectedly filled with an intense desire to feel him, to anchor himself physically in this moment as he confessed, “I’ve lived with mental illness my whole life. I told you earlier that my mom isn’t well… would you like to know why?”

Sam snapped his mouth shut and nodded, slowly.

“She’s a paranoid schizophrenic,” Spencer said, and he watched as Sam’s countenance shifted, moment by moment, moving seamlessly from a nervous wreck to sympathetic understanding, “She’s living at the Bennington Sanitarium in Nevada, as a patient. My dad left when I was very young, and my mom, she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself. She could hardly dress herself, or remember to eat or sleep. She had good days and bad days, and I was the only one there to care for her.”

Sam gripped his hand tightly.

“It’s why I went into the study of psychology in the first place,” Spencer said, smiling mirthlessly, “so I could take better care of her, or at least try to understand her. But even throughout all the hardship, the loneliness and the pain of growing up in a home life that, I never—I would never blame _her_. It’s not her fault she’s ill, and its not yours either.” Shuffling closer, his shins brushing the sides of Sam’s thigh, Spencer reached out and cupped the side of his face, looking into his eyes, “What Ruby did was reprehensible, but you need to believe that I am nothing like her. Knowing this doesn’t change the way I feel about you, if anything, it makes me like you more.”

Sam scoffed at that and tried to turn his head, but Spencer wouldn’t let him. “It’s true,” he insisted, cradling Sam’s face with both hands now as he rose to his knees, climbing into Sam’s lap and straddling his thighs. Sam had no where else to turn, no where to look but up into his eyes, no choice but to see the truth, as Spencer murmured, “I think you’re incredibly brave and strong to have accomplished all that you have despite the difficulties you’ve faced. I think you’re kind-hearted and empathetic, despite the lack of compassion you’ve received. And I most certainly think you’re worth caring about.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in, but when they did, the change was immediate. Sam stared at him for a while, searching his face for any hint of deceit, like an animal unfamiliar with the touch of a gentle hand. And when he found nothing but heartfelt sincerity, he crumpled forwards, dropping his head and pressing himself against Spencer’s chest with a sob of relief, his arms winding around Spencer’s waist and holding him tight. Seized within Sam’s iron grasp, all Spencer could do was hold on, burying his fingers in Sam’s hair and guiding him to rest his head upon his chest, to fall into his embrace and relax, to let go.

Listening to the clock ticking downstairs, Spencer ran his fingers through Sam’s hair, scratching soothing lines down his scalp to the nape of his neck. He let himself be held in place, moved like a doll when Sam finally shifted, rolling onto his side and taking Spencer with him so they laid face to face on the bed. Sam leaned back, his face flushed as he ran his fingertips down the side of Spencer’s face, over his cheek to his jaw, then down to his throat, where he guiltily stroked the space he’d thrust his arm into not an hour earlier.

“I’m fine,” Spencer assured him, gently guiding his hand up from his throat to Spencer’s cheek, sighing contentedly as Sam traced the curve of his cheekbone with his thumb, “I promise, I’m okay. You’re just going to need to tell me how to handle you, if you have a nightmare like that again.”

Sam’s whole face lit up, and smiling hesitantly, asked, “You’re planning on seeing me again, then?”

“Oh, definitely,” Spencer said, leaning closer, until their noses kissed and he could feel Sam’s breath fan out across his lips, “Over and over, until you decide you’re sick of me.”

“I could never be sick of you,” Sam said, and the heat in his voice struck a spark in Spencer’s belly, and he gasped sharply when Sam closed the distance between them, pulling Spencer into a passionate kiss.

That spark in his stomach roared to life as Sam held him close, caressing his way down Spencer’s cheek to his arms and guiding them around his neck. He held on tight, moaning softly when Sam wrapped his arms tightly around his waist, squeezing him in until they were pressed against one another from chest to hip, their legs tangling over the covers. The denim of Sam’s jeans chafed against his bare thighs, and without thinking Spencer reached down and fumbled open his fly, realizing halfway through shoving Sam’s jeans down that Sam didn’t seem to mind. Just the opposite in fact, as Sam groaned low in his throat, holding him close and slipping his tongue past Spencer’s lips to twine with his.

Parting for a moment to tug Sam’s shirt over his head, Spencer sighed happily once Sam was back to being just as naked as he was, the feel of his strong legs almost intoxicating as he slipped a thigh in between Spencer’s. He rolled them again, settling between Spencer’s spread thighs and hovering above him, and when Sam broke away, his breathing fast and the heat of his body blanketing Spencer as he lay underneath him, the look in his eye was mesmerizing.

This was different, Spencer’s sputtering brain supplied him, this was so different than the anything they’d done so far. There was a weight to Sam’s stare, a heavy feeling of gravitas smoldering in the air around them. And when Sam ran his hands down Spencer’s chest he left a burning trail in their wake, his palms as hot as embers against Spencer’s chilled skin. “You’re always so cold,” Sam murmured, smiling as he grabbed the blanket they’d left discarded by the end of the bed, pulling it up over them and stretching his body out along Spencer’s.

He wasn’t cold now, not as Sam lowered himself on top of him, sucking gently on his tongue as he ran his hands down his body, light every one of Spencer’s nerves aflame. Spencer was trembling under his careful touch, moaning into every kiss and when Sam grazed the pad of his thumb over his nipple he gasped, throwing his head back and arching as sharp, aching pleasure shuddered through his bones.

Peppering a gentle kiss on the tip of his nose, his chin, his collarbone, Sam worked his way down his chest, curling both arms around Spencer’s waist and keeping his back arched as he laved his tongue across that same, pebbled nipple, sucking it into his mouth. Spencer couldn’t help but buck his hips, his hands flying to Sam’s shoulders and holding on for dear life as his erection brushed up against Sam’s stomach.

Sam groaned against his skin, pressing his forehead into his chest and breathing hard before kissing down even further, nipping at each one of Spencer’s prominent ribs. And all Spencer could do was grip his shoulders with punishing strength he didn’t know he possessed. He felt like he was floating, his mind hazy and his limbs moving on auto pilot, like his brain had completely checked out and now he was just along for the ride. He could hear the dull tick-tock of the clock downstairs, the shifting of the blankets around them and his blood pounding in his ears, undercut by the calming sound of Sam’s steady breathing.

This was different, he mused as he tugged Sam up by his arms, until they were face to face, until he could feel those lips against his again. There was no rush, no hurry and they kissed lazily, greedy hands exploring the expanse of each others bodies, their breath hitching around the occasional moan when someone licked or stirred at something especially sensitive. Sam was rocking his hips downwards, no particular goal in mind, just chasing sensation and Spencer bucked up to meet him, gripping Sam’s hips and guiding him in a steady, building rhythm.

He was breathing hard, sweltering in the heat beneath the blankets, their slick skin sliding as they moved in tandem. Sam was a stalwart figure above him, the light filtering through the curtains catching off the glistening muscles in his back as he rolled his hips, his face buried in Spencer’s neck as he panted his pleasure. Spencer wrapped his legs around Sam’s waist and squeezed his thighs, running his nails down Sam’s back as he arched his spine, before he made up his mind to reach an arm over his head and groped around in his headboard.

Sam pulled back and looked down at him, a curious look on his face as he asked, “Can I help you with something?”

“There’s a box,” Spencer said, pointing to the shelf above his head, “a cigar box.”

“And you need it right now?” Sam asked with an arched brow, “Right this minute?”

“Yes,” Spencer said, pointing more insistently.

Sam smiled, kissing him on the forehead before doing as he was asked and grabbing the box, depositing it in Spencer’s hands. Though he knew what he wanted and what he was asking for, Spencer still felt his nerves give a thrill as he reached inside and pulled out what he needed, shoving the condom and bottle of lube into Sam’s hands.

Sam’s face as he studied what Spencer had just handed him, and when he realized what Spencer was getting at, was almost comical. He flushed, stammering like a nervous wreck as he asked, “Are you sure?”

Nodding, Spencer set the box back on his shelf and pulled Sam down, putting his mouth over any other stupid questions he might have half a mind to ask.

Hesitantly, Sam placed the condom and lube on the bed next to them, knotting his hands in Spencer’s hair and kissing him deeply. The brunt of his weight was balanced in his thighs, his hips pinning Spencer’s to the bed as he mouthed along his cheek, his stubble scratching against his jaw as he kissed down his throat. He moved slowly, cutting a path with his lips and tongue and following along with his hands, over every dip and valley of Spencer’s body, pausing to nibble at the soft patch of skin just above his abdomen that never failed to make him moan.

His head thrown back, his eyes fluttering shut, Spencer gasped as Sam’s chin bumped up against his cock, his hot breath gusting over his hips as Sam worked his way down to his thighs. Those large hands he’d become so accustomed to in such a short span of time gripped the backs of his thighs tight, and those familiar lips ghosted faint little kisses across his soft skin. The thundering of Spencer’s own heartbeat, exponentially loud in their cavern of pillows and blankets, almost blocked out the sound of a cap snapping open and shut.

“Go slow,” he said softly, and his hands drifted down to toy with Sam’s hair, feeling him nod as he dipped a slick finger behind his balls, running soothing circles around his hole. Spencer let out a long exhale as Sam pressed in with one finger, all at once so glad they’d already this much twice that day, thanking his past self for the ease of that first fingers passage.

God, it was so hot. Spencer was sweltering, his skin prickling with sweat as he spread his legs wider, feeling his muscles shift and give as Sam plunged back inside him with his finger, nerve endings flaring, making him gasp and writhe against the mattress. It had never felt like this before. _He’d_ never felt like this, like his whole world was focused in on himself and the point of contact between him and Sam, who was currently laying a sloppy trail of kisses up his thigh to his abdomen, to his—

“Oh my god,” Spencer cried out, his hands scrabbling at Sam’s shoulder’s as his hot, wet mouth descended around his cock, his tongue curving around the underside as he slid another finger in alongside the first and pressed deeper, curling up, _up_ until he grazed Spencer’s prostate. Whimpering up at the ceiling Spencer held on tight, his stomach muscles twitching, his cock pulsing a stream of precome into Sam’s waiting mouth every time he thrust in with his fingers, rubbing over his prostate every other plunge and making him see stars.

His mouth was heaven, but the double onslaught of his fingers and his wicked tongue were bringing Spencer too close, too soon and he tugged up on Sam’s hair, calling his name as he tried to get his attention. With a concerned expression and delightfully swollen lips, Sam pulled off of his cock with a wet pop and sidled up beside Spencer, two fingers still steadily thrusting inside of him. “Kiss me,” Spencer murmured against his mouth and Sam happily obliged, suckling gently on his lower lip as he lined up a third finger and pressed in, slowly.

Spencer clenched his eyes shut, hissing through his teeth as he instinctively clenched down around the intrusion, that one extra finger pushing what was a wonderful stretch into a painful burn and Sam broke their kiss, pulling his fingers back. “No, wait,” Spencer pleaded, reaching down and wrapping his hand around Sam’s wrist, keeping him right where he was, three fingers curling at his rim, “Just… gently. I’ll tell you when you can go deeper.”

Sam nodded wordlessly, resting his forehead against Spencer’s as he watched his face for any sign of discomfort, tracking every twitch of his brow or curl of his lip as he slowly, shallowly thrust his fingers inside of him. It was a stretch, but Spencer breathed through it, curling his toes and bearing down against Sam’s hand, feeling his muscles give way as Sam started pressing more insistently. Spencer nodded, cupping Sam’s jaw with both hands and kissing him softly as Sam pushed in deeper, and Spencer felt himself relaxing, rocking back into the motions of Sam’s hand and moaning every time he hit his prostate.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” Sam said, brushing Spencer’s bangs back from his sweaty forehead with his free hand as Spencer squirmed, clinging to Sam’s arms like they were his life line, “How are you even real?”

“Sam,” he moaned, throwing his head back and gasping when Sam ducked forward to nip at his newly exposed throat, “please?”

He bucked his hips up and away from Sam’s fingers, and Sam smiled, taking the hint and pulling them out gently, pushing up onto his knees as he grabbed the condom. Moonlight hit him from behind, silhouetting him as he sat back on his heels, tearing the packet with his teeth, his skin glistening and his chests heaving, belaying his cool demeanour. And when he bit his lower lip shyly, lovingly stroking Spencer’s thighs as he stared down at his face, Spencer’s heart thumped in his chest, affection twisting at his insides and moving him to tug Sam back down, until their foreheads rested against each other, until they were hovering eye to eye as Sam slowly pushed inside.

Spencer’s thighs spasmed around Sam’s hips at the initial press of his cock, the head just stretching past his rim already feeling far too large. He’d known since last night that if they ever worked up to this, it would be a bit of a struggle; Sam was larger than anyone he’d ever slept with before (a grand total of two, but he didn’t need to know that), and Spencer had to grit his teeth, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth.

But Sam was watching him like a hawk, and at the first sign of discomfort he pulled back, pressing forwards again in short, shallow strokes, a little further each time until Spencer felt something give, and the next thrust was smoother, easier. Digging his heel into the back of Sam’s thigh, Spencer urged him closer, gasping when he pushed in deeper, stretching him further than his fingers could reach.

It felt like an eternity until Sam pushed forward one last time, the tops of his thighs smacking against Spencer’s rear. Even still, it felt like someone had taken that moment and stretched it out to infinity as Spencer breathed, weakly pawing at Sam’s back and entirely overwhelmed by the feeling of fullness overtaking him. He felt pinned like a butterfly, impaled against the mattress and when Sam slouched forwards, only wrapping his arms around Spencer’s arched back so he could press closer to him, it felt as though Spencer’s world shifted on its axis. It was the tiniest of movements, but it rocked him to his core, and he cried out soundlessly, pressing his face sideways into the pillow.

“Hey,” Sam called out to him, his voice wavering, his hips trembling between Spencer’s thighs in an attempt to keep still, “Spencer, are you okay?”

His answer came in the form of Spencer’s hand sliding down his back, over sweat-slick skin to the muscular curve of his ass, where he grabbed a handful and pulled, rocking his hips forwards. Sam dropped his head into the crook of his neck, groaning loudly, his cock throbbing inside of Spencer and earning him an echoing moan. Words failing him, all Spencer could do was keep tugging his hips, wrapping his legs tight around his waist in an attempt to keep him close, to urge him into motion.

Pulling out a fraction of an inch, Sam sunk back into him, panting hard against Spencer’s throat. It didn’t matter that they were hardly moving, that they were only slowly rocking against each other. The slide of Sam inside of him, pressing deeper with each minute roll of his hips was intoxicating, earth shattering, and Spencer felt a thrill of _something_ (arousal, anxiety or excitement, he couldn’t tell anymore) stir in his chest as he realized Sam was reaching into him, touching a part of him no one else had. That dull, throbbing ache that surfaced when Sam first pushed inside had long faded, replaced with a heady sense of wholeness that left him wanting more.

Each time Sam retreated, he longed for him, locking his feet at the small of his back to keep him from going to far, and the result was a slow, maddening build, a long, drawn out climb to the finish. And each time Sam thrust forwards, Spencer could only manage to sob out a moan, every muscle in his body lit aflame and contracting, furiously trying to keep Sam inside, to hold on to him and pull him back into his body, his world centered on that one point of connection.

He could feel every shift in angle, every ridge of Sam’s cock as he pulled out slowly, as he pistoned his hips forwards. Every pulse of Sam’s hard flesh sparked an echoing pulse of his own, and when Sam hitched Spencer’s legs higher, his knee’s now grazing against Sam’s shoulder blades, he zeroed in on Spencer’s prostate with each thrust, and Spencer threw his head back into the pillows, gasping soundlessly.

Sam lifted up onto his elbows, pulling out a little further each time, snapping his hips forward with a little more abandon, still a steady ebb and flow. He was flushed, his cheeks red with exertion and a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek to his chin as he stared down at Spencer with half-lidded eyes, brushing Spencer’s hair back from his face even as his own long hair draped around them like a curtain. “Spencer,” he murmured, cupping Spencer’s cheek with the hand not tangled in his hair, stroking the arch of his brow, the hollow of his cheek, along his plump, lower lip with reverence, mapping out ever feature like he was trying to burn them into his memory, “You’re so gorgeous, _fuck_ , you feel so good.”

Spencer panted harshly as Sam snapped his hips forward, the full strength of his thighs breaking against Spencer’s hips and he reached up, brushing Sam’s hair up behind his ears and holding it there, tugging him down into a sloppy, open mouthed kiss. He could hardly move his lips, but he tried, moaning around Sam’s tongue as he plundered his mouth, coaxing Spencer into action, the steady rocking of his hips building to a fever pitch, his balls slapping against Spencer’s ass with each thrust forward.

Bucking his hips up to meet him, Spencer cried out as his desperately hard cock was pinned between their stomachs, Sam’s abs flexing on each downstroke and suddenly he was so close, his cock pulsing with each inward thrust. “Sam, _Sam_ , oh—oh god,” he panted, his voice lilting upwards as he reached down, grabbing a firm handful of each of Sam’s ass cheeks and pulling him down, keeping the pressure on his cock and Sam’s erection deep inside of him, “I’m so close, I-I’m so—I’m gonna— _fuck_ , don’t stop, don’t you dare stop!”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Sam murmured, biting Spencer’s lower lip between his teeth and tugging gently as he reached down with one hand, pulling up on Spencer’s lower back until they were pressed together constantly from the waist down. Held together so close, Sam could only manage abortive little thrusts of his hips, but the angle was so perfect, the way he rolled his hips in small, undulating circles to keep the pressure on Spencer’s prostate was so _good_ that in mere moments Spencer was clamping down around him, wailing into the sweaty skin of his neck as he came hard, his cock spurting between them.

“Yes, _yes_ ,” Sam hissed between his teeth, his thrusts more erratic, deeper and harsher as he chased his orgasm, and Spencer held on, his arms like gelatin wrapped around Sam’s waist, “You’re so hot, so tight, _Spencer_ , you feel amazing.”

Spencer hummed in appreciation, rocking his hips upwards to meet each of Sam’s thrusts, basking in the litany of adorations that fell from his lips. He opened his eyes just a sliver and brushed Sam’s hair back again so he could watch, uninterrupted as Sam's brow furrowed, his eyes clenching shut as his cock throbbed one, twice inside of him before he came, holding his hips against Spencer’s as he twitched and pulsed through his orgasm.

They were both panting, sweaty and sated when Sam opened his eyes, and both of them smiled, Sam chuckling shyly as he relaxed, letting his hips fall into Spencer’s, forcing his spent cock deeper inside and making Spencer gasp. Sam dropped his head forwards into Spencer’s neck, softly kissing his overheated skin as he whispered, “Wow.”

Tossing his head back with an elated giggle, Spencer let his legs drop back onto the bed, his knees falling out to the sides as he nodded dreamily, humming in agreement. Sam was resting on top of him with the full brunt of his weight, but at the moment, Spencer didn’t have the energy to care. It was comforting, if immeasurably hot, and he ran his fingernails soothingly up and down Sam’s back, enjoying the shiver that ran up his spine, and the goosebumps that erupted across his glistening skin.

“If you don’t stop that, I’m going to fall asleep,” Sam said, his voice muffled by the pillow he was speaking into, until he lifted up onto his elbows, the small shift of his hips brushing Spencer’s prostate, forcing a weak stream of come from his over-sensitive cock. Spencer shift backwards with a pained grunt, and Sam pulled back, asking worriedly, “What’s wrong?”

“No—nothing, I’m fine. I’m wonderful,” Spencer assured him, shifting his stiff hips and looking up at Sam with a small, bashful grin, “Just a little sensitive. Do you mind…?”

He gestured between them with a weak flap of his hand and Sam nodded eagerly, reaching down and murmuring an apology as he slowly pulled out, wincing when Spencer gasped. “I’ll be right back,” he murmured, standing up on shaky legs and stumbling a few steps towards the staircase, before pausing and hurrying back to press a tender kiss to Spencer’s forehead. Spencer chuckled at him and Sam just shrugged before padding down the stairs to the bathroom, the sound of his retreating footsteps soothing as Spencer relaxed into bed, his limbs heavy and mind peacefully blank.

He was already dozing off, his arms heavy and lying uselessly on either side of his head as his eyes fluttered shut, when Sam returned, chugging half a glass of water before nudging it into Spencer’s hand. “Here,” he said, climbing back into bed and helping Spencer sit up, smiling warmly when Spencer protested. He was a mess, his stomach tacky with come and his inner thighs slick with lube, but Sam had him covered. As soon as Spencer took the glass from his hand he got to work, wiping up the mess of his stomach and thighs with a damp towel, one he must have brought with him from downstairs, and Spencer took a large gulp of water, attempting to swallow the lump of affection that had taken root in his throat.

“You weren’t kidding,” Sam said as he finished up, discarding the towel beside the bed and climbing up next to Spencer, “I do babble.”

“I told you,” Spencer said, curling into Sam’s side and draping the blanket back over them, listening to the gently reassuring thump of Sam’s heart as he rested his cheek on his breastbone, “but it’s not a bad thing. I kind of like it.”

“Good,” Sam kissed the top of his head, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him closer, grunting as he stretched out his legs and got comfortable, “because I don’t know if I can stop. Especially not if we do that again.”

“Oh, we’re definitely doing that again,” said Spencer, his cheeks heating up as he confessed, “It’s never been that good before. I’ve only done it a few times, and it was never _bad_ , I just…” He looked up at Sam and curiously bit his lip, “I don’t think I’ve ever trusted the people I was with enough to really enjoy it.”

“But you trust me?”

“I do.”

Sam ducked his head and kissed Spencer softly, his lips warm and pliant, and when he pulled away he said, “I’ve never done that before in my life.”

That peaked Spencer’s interest, “What?”

Sam shrugged, “I’ve never had penetrative sex with a guy before.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Spencer asked, tugging at Sam’s chin until he looked down at him, “We didn’t—”

“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think it was a big deal. I mean, I’ve done anal with girls, just never with another man,” Sam said, grabbing Spencer’s wrist and bringing his hand up, kissing his palm, “I figured it was all the same.”

“Was it?”

“No,” Sam shook his head, “but I think that had less to do with you being a man, and everything to do with how much I like you.”

“So,” Spencer said, blushing fiercely as he splayed his fingers across Sam’s chest, staring determinedly and running his palm over his coarse chest hair, “It was okay?”

“’Okay’?” Sam repeated incredulously, scoffing as he rolled onto his side and cupped Spencer’s jaw, looking intently into his eyes as he said, “’Okay’ is far too cold a word to describe what we just did. Sex with you is great. It’s incredible. No matter what we do, its always amazing _because_ its with you.” Relaxing a little and nipping at his nose, Sam added, “ _Six times_ , Spencer, in the span of twenty-four hours. I don’t know what kind of wild sex life you might be accustomed to, but even when I was in college, I _never_ did anything like this.”

“Me neither,” Spencer said, smiling cheekily, “I was fourteen when I was in college, but I’ve never done anything like this _since_ , either. I’m worried I’m not going to be able to walk into work tomorrow.”

“Oh, cool,” Sam said, grinning wryly as he started to climb out of bed, “Well, my job’s done, I call you—”

Spencer laughed, grabbing him by the crook of his elbow and pulling him back under the covers. “You better call,” he murmured, kissing Sam on the lips and sighing happily when Sam cradled the back of his head and deepened it.

“I will,” Sam assured him as the pulled apart, “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, and besides… I believe I was promised another round.”

Spencer smacked him playfully across the chest and Sam held him tighter, laughing uproariously.

_6am_

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ —” Spencer cried out, his legs shuddering as he straddled Sam’s hips and he dug his fingers into Sam’s wrists, holding on for dear life. Sam gripped his hips hard, thrusting up into the spread of Spencer’s thighs, plunging into his tight, wet heat at a punishing pace, his feet pressed into the mattress for leverage and his neck arching back into the pillows.

He’d not have anticipated the ferocity with which they were currently clawing at each other when Spencer had woken up that morning. They’d come to slowly, Spencer’s back to Sam’s front, the morning sunlight warming them as they fought their way through the fog of sleep to consciousness. Sam’s hands slid softly along his chest and down his sides, skimming over soft, sleepy skin and Spencer had rolled his hips back, arousal thrilling through his contented exhaustion when Sam had gasped, bucking his hips and grinding his morning erection against the swell of Spencer’s ass.

He’d not expected, as Sam hastily slicked him up and slid inside of him, rocking his hips leisurely, building to a maddeningly slow rhythm that he himself would have rolled Sam onto his back, sinking down onto his cock and riding him. He’d kept a steady pace, unable to go too fast too quickly as their new position forced Sam deeper than they’d gone before, reducing Spencer to a panting, pleading mess in record time as he’d eventually begged Sam to take him harder, fuck him faster.

And now he could hardly manage to move, not as Sam surged upwards, gathering Spencer in his lap and never ceasing the relentless pounding of his hips, his cock rocking inwards at an angle that had Spencer sobbing wordlessly towards the ceiling. Sam pulled him down by his hips as he thrust upwards, trailing sloppy kisses along Spencer’s collarbone as he reached between them, his hand wrapping around Spencer’s cock and ripping a strangled cry from his throat.

Dimly, Spencer remembered hearing an impatient pounding as his neighbour shouted through the wall for them to “shut the _fuck up_!” but he barely registered it. He pulled Sam close with both arms and clamped down hard, coming with a broken wail and spilling into Sam’s fist as Sam tumbled with him over the edge.

“Fucking _finally_ ,” his neighbour shouted again, his voice muffled through the layers of plaster and paint, “It’s six in the goddamned morning, some of us are still trying to sleep, you jackasses!”

“Sorry!” Sam shouted back, though he didn’t sound very sincere, and Spencer dropped his forehead to his shoulder, chuckling between gasps of breath.

“We do need to stop,” he attested, and when Sam shook his head to the contrary, he added, “seriously, that was the _last time_. I need to be at work in three hours and I’m going to be expected to be functional.”

“Yeah, me too,” Sam groaned, steadying Spencer by the hips as he lifted up onto his knees, flopping back onto the mattress with little care for the come rapidly cooling on his hand, “I’m on-call tonight.”

“Ouch,” Spencer said with a grimace, reaching across Sam and grabbing the towel, swatting him with it when Sam tried nip at his chest as he leaned over him, “you think you got enough sleep?”

“Hell no.” Sam took the towel gratefully, wiping his hand and frowning at the complete and utter mess of them, “I’ll go home and sleep the rest of the afternoon though, and I should be fine.”

“Is it harder for you to get a night’s rest when you aren’t at home?” Spencer asked, and when Sam looked at him curiously, he explained, “Because of your OCD. I know that diversions in patterns and routine can exacerbate the occurrence of obsessive thoughts.”

Sam shook his head, but the expression on his face was curiously pinched, like the wasn’t telling Spencer everything. “Sometimes it takes a little getting used to,” he said, his tone clipped and Spencer frowned, spotting the lie with practised ease, “but after a while it gets better.”

“Is there anything else I should know,” Spencer asked, keeping his tone even less his calculating question tip Sam off, “like your nightmares?”

He watched Sam carefully, pinpointing the second he broke eye contact, the very instant he lied, saying “No, nothing else.”

Spencer arched a brow, but didn’t push the subject further.

How curious, he thought, and added bringing this up again to his mental to-do list.

“Just—” Sam cut himself off, his gaze darting around the room, “if I have another nightmare like I did last night, don’t touch me. Do whatever else you need to do to wake me, but don’t ever touch me.”

“Okay,” Spencer agreed, kissing him on the cheek and telling him, “I’m proud of you.”

Sam flushed bright red, but smiled regardless, gently caressing Spencer’s cheek as he told him, “You too.”

_7:30am_

Showered and changed into fresh clothes, Spencer stood on one side of his open apartment door, smiling shyly up at Sam on the other, his backpack looped over his shoulders and a silly grin on his face. “I’ll call you if anything changes,” Sam said, reaching forwards and tangling his fingers with Spencer’s, “but otherwise, I’ll be at the Red Brick tomorrow, usual time.”

Taking a tentative step closer and rising onto his toes, Spencer kissed Sam chastely on the lips, and murmured, “Thank you for spending my day off with me.”

“Thank you for letting me,” was his reply.

Spencer agreed to meet him the following morning in between sweet, harried kisses, both of them struggling to pull away, and even when Sam made his way down the hall, Spencer watched him leave, waving goodbye as Sam turned the corner into the stairwell.

Closing his apartment door, Spencer leaned back against it with a sigh, looking around his suddenly too-empty apartment with a mournful smile, his heart full as he realized how absolutely boned he was. Sam was only just gone, and he missed him already, and as he scrubbed a hand down the side of his face Spencer had to laugh at how ridiculous that was. He felt like a love-sick teenager, counting down the seconds until he saw his boyfriend again, and even thinking of the term made his heart give a thrill of excitement.

Just a week ago, he never would have dreamed he’d have spent some ridiculously wild thirty-six hours in the company Sam Campbell, much less wind up dating him at the end of it all.

And now he couldn’t will the day to go by fast enough, just so he could see him again.

While he was drifting in his reverie, Spencer’s cellphone buzzed in his pocket, and he frowned, fishing it out and flipping it open, his heart dropping as he saw JJ’s message:

_We got a live one. Hotch wants everyone in the briefing room in one hour… sorry to interrupt, Spence :(_

He sighed, snapping his phone shut and collecting his go bag, unable to feel too badly about this unwanted (though not entirely unexpected) wrench in his plans.

At least they had one whole day free with each other, and he was certain they’d get another one soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor, naive Spencer- doesn't he know that evil author Jane Doh isn't gonna let him off that easy?
> 
> Muahaha...
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed what will most likely be the most intense, smut filled portion of this series! Next up on the docket is "December 2006: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Something-Something," which should be up in a few days time :)
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated! I love hearing from you all, and will try my best to answer before the next chapter/installment is posted.


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